Battle Scars
by Blueberry-Pie2
Summary: A betraying girl, a devastated family. A werewolf with a lost destiny, a new start at a place with a familiar past. And all of this will lead to the destruction of an innocent, human, life. See full summary inside. ON HIATUS
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer: Twilight belong to Stephenie Meyer. I just love to write with her characters. No copyright infringement intended. **

**Summary**

What if there wasn't a real happily ever after? Who says that Renesmee's childhood was as filled with unbreakable happiness as one like to think? What prevents her from turning into the darkest character of the saga so far?

This is a tale about how the changes of her personality ruined the lives of so many more than she had counted with.

Life as you know it will change. Forever.

**Prologue**

**100 miles East of Hartley Bay, British Columbia, Canada**

**March 24th 2064**

An almost invisible moon was shining feebly over the grand, white, house, positioned almost in the middle of the dense forest. A wind was blowing stubbornly in the woods, rustling the leaves, while a callous rain hammered the wet ground with nails of raindrops.

The moon rays had to fight to reach the house through the thick and dark branches of the many surrounding trees. The woods were pitch black tonight, while the moon was tired. Thin and sick, without energy to at least dimly light up the Canadian ground. The velvet darkness caressed everything. Everything but one, lonely, window on the highest floor of the house – someone had lit a single bedside lamp in the large bedroom.

From outside, it seemed like an odd place to position a house. No human beings nearby, a huge forest a few feet from the door, unpaved roads, the many trees covering every possible view from the windows… And yet there it stood, the luxurious four-storey building that had been built and bought by an American family, unknown to most inhabitants.

Only one person was at home. She had lit the single lamp in her bedroom, even though she was comfortable with the dark. It had never scared her, like it scared most other people. She found solace in the dark, the fact that she could not see some of the things she despised most comforted her.

Her gaze rested for a short moment on what she had laid out in front of her, on the bed. It was all that was necessary in what was about to become her new lifestyle. She was going to start over, and let her past become nothing but a memory.

There they were, clothes, the razors, one book, some money and the ring. _That _ring. The one _he_ had given to her. She had never worn it, insisting she wanted to keep it a secret for now. She had lied.

She still loved him, she always would. In a way, their destinies would always be linked together. He was the only one who had ever touched her heart. He was the only one she had not stubbornly pushed away.

Her plan was to bring the ring, to give him the tiniest bit of consolation. They would search through her room, desperately looking for evidence, and when no ring was found, he would know she'd taken it with her. He would know that she hadn't ceased loving him.

The fact that she was going to give so much up scared her, while at the same time the thought made her even more eager to follow through her plan. Finally on her own, independent. She would finally be able to choose for herself.

Things had started to fall a part a little less than twelve years ago. She had begun to change, just the littlest bit for every day, little enough for it not to be noticeable. She had been careful, and tried to bottle up as much as possible inside. By the time it was impossible to hold it in any longer, she knew how to discreetly let it out.

_He_ was the only one who had noticed how she was no longer herself. Her family was still living in a daze of ignorance. _He _was the only one who had sensed it, because he knew her better than she knew herself. _He_ was the reason to why she tried to hide it; she did not want to hurt him.

Even though he was all that mattered to her, she was still leaving. She refused to spend a moment more in the same pattern she lived her life in. She did not belong with the rest of them. She was different, and nothing could change that.

She would hurt him. She would hurt him more than anyone had ever hurt anyone before; it was not something she could deny. What was the fate for the kind like him, who lost the one thing that held them to this earth?

Although she would make him suffer so, so, badly, it didn't make her change her plans. In that sense she was selfish. He would get over her; he would find someone else, because he did not deserve someone like her. He deserved someone better. She was not good for him. His sunlight couldn't shine through her darkened soul, nothing could.

Where was her kind now? Did _he_ still exist? It had been almost seventy years since that day where he had so heroically come to them. Maybe he had ceased to be, having been dragged into an endless despair similar to her own?

No, she couldn't think like that. He was her only way out, the only one who could understand. No empty words and pointless attempts to consolation would escape his mouth. _He _out of all people would understand her. She was so sure about that.

She didn't have any memories of her own of him. All she had heard were the marvelous stories of how hehad saved them all from being torn into shreds and burned. He, who had proved to the evil ones, those who had come to destroy, that her existence posed no threat. How her incredible aunt had been the one to save them all by fetching him.

He had sisters as well. Sisters, _girls_, just like her. She couldn't wait to meet them. She couldn't wait to spend the rest of eternity with them, and leave her grieving place among her family behind. They would like her, she would like them, and she would fit in. She would become a part of a new family. She had it all planned, she knew what was going to happen.

At least she knew where he _had _been seventy years ago. Hopefully, he was still there. She refused to believe anything else. If he weren't still in the place where she suspected he was, she would find him. She had to, and she would. What could stop her? _Nothing. _What obstacles could she possibly fail to overcome? _None. _

She looked down at the things she had put out again, taking out a small bag from the wardrobe and quickly stuffing them all into it. She hesitated when her fingers gripped the razors, the ones she had so carefully hidden from everyone. She knew she would need them later, but if she could only, for once, at least _try _to leave them behind. She knew deep down that they were bad for her. But she craved them so much it almost hurt to not know where they were. They were her consolation and solace.

Because of that, she chose to take them with her.

The razors were a strange part of her. She knew many others used them as to get away from the mental pain suffocating their heart, and the idea had in a strange way always been tempting. She had first tried to cut herself eight years ago, only to find out that the blades did little damage to her hard skin. But she had persevered; she was stubborn, just like her mother. And so, one lonely October night, when she once again found herself alone in the bathroom, this time with a scissor in her hand, she noticed, to her great surprise, how the edge was able to bore into her now fragile skin.

Maybe it had something to do with her kind. She didn't care enough to search for an answer. All she knew was after that time, she was stuck. It was her escape from the world around her. She started coming up with lies of how she enjoyed being left alone often, only so she could precious the few moments where she was suddenly elsewhere. Her family couldn't be there when she did it, she had to be alone.

The cleaning afterwards had to be done thoroughly. With God knew how much cleaning products, she scrubbed every little area of the bathroom clean. She could leave no traces, especially not with her family.

She started wearing long sleeves all the time, without any objections from the rest of her family. She convinced her fashionable aunt that it was a new style she had learned from girls outside of the house, humans. And to her great surprise, her aunt believed it. No one ever saw the scars that adorned her wrists. No one.

She learned to control her thoughts. The cutting was far, far, away in her mind. Even though her dad at most times kept out of her head, she could never be sure if he would hear something that might make him suspicious. She did grow a little sick of never being able to be herself around her family, but on the few occasions where she could be just that were the ones that kept her from going insane.

She developed great acting skills, so that one of her uncles wouldn't see through her façade. She could be breaking apart inside, while at the same time radiate emotions of contentment. And when it was too difficult to masquerade everything, she looked pleadingly at the uncle, and he would know she needed to keep it to herself.

Keeping secrets from her family was not easy, and would never be. Thanks to their abilities, it was clear that she with most difficulty could keep things away from them. She knew that not all lives were as complicated as her was, and that was one of the reasons to why she continued to struggle with her anonymity.

At least her aunt couldn't see her future. Obviously that mattered the most.

If her aunt could see her, then she would see being as unhappy, then she would see her cut herself, then she would see her leave.

Then everything would be spoiled.

But her aunt couldn't see her. She figured that was the light at the end of her dark tunnel. She figured it was some sort of sign, something that told her she had to leave.

As everything was packed into the small bag, the girl slowly tucked a lock of her curly hair behind the ear, and let her gaze swipe over her room for a short moment. She tried to memorize as much of it as possible, before she would leave it forever.

The blackness from the window didn't reflect much light onto the worn furniture, there was only her little lamp that threw a dim, yellow, light into the room.

The wallpaper was what she would miss most, she thought. It was a red climbing pattern placed onto a white surface. Before she would fall asleep every night, she would study the wallpaper. To see how the thin lines of read with dots created an endless forest, it made her happy; mesmerized her.

"_Nahuel_," she whispered to herself.

A long time ago, she remembered having spoken to one of the teachers in one of her many temporary schools. He had very vividly described to her, how bad it had been for him to stay with his friends during high school. Because they had made him feel bad about himself, they had lowered his confidence and self-esteem; they had torn him apart.

He had never changed friends, convincing himself no one else wanted to be with him. Many years later he regretted it more than anything. They had made those years extremely difficult for him.

And she could relate to that. She could understand how she would deeply regret not leaving her family if she stayed among them, continuing on with being different. It would tear her apart, ripping her into shreds. She had to leave; it was the only way out, the only way to feel better.

She was selfish, but that was the last thought she had in her head. She wanted to break free from the melancholy she lived in. Why couldn't she?

He wasn't to arrive home again until hours later. The other would return in days. It would give her time. She would be quick enough – she could run fast enough. Her plan was to travel to Vancouver first. The rain would wipe away most of her scent, if the plan she had in mind didn't work.

After she had discovered that she could control of her skin, she had posed the question if the same also was possible to other parts of herself. What if she was capable of controlling her scent as well? What if she could change her appearance, her size, the length of her hair?

She hadn't tried yet, but she was positive that she could _at least_ control her scent, weaken it in a way.

Since it had taken time to make her skin vulnerable, she had at first wanted to control her scent about a month ago. With a little luck, it would disappear in a few hours.

She closed her eyes for a moment, pressing her eyelids tight together. Focusing only on that single thought. _Please, please, please… _

If her scent disappeared, then her family would be next to nothing in the search for her. It was their only way of finding out where she went. Her thoughts weren't saved, nor her mood, and her future was protected.

Things would work out, they would. Thanks to _her_. For a short moment, she was struck by the question if her ability to change herself was connected to her different kind, or to her other ability.

Yes, the vulnerability of her skin wasn't the only thing she could control. No, her other ability was much more noticeable, more prominent to others.

She smiled a little to herself as a few faint memories of how she had first used her ability on her family, as a little new born, displayed inside of her mind. She could transfer thoughts, pictures, words, whatever she wanted, from her to anyone else, simply by touching that person.

A few months after she had quit growing, she, together with him, had noticed how her ability was much greater than what she had previously thought. Once together on a beach, they had learned that she could transfer thoughts into _objects _as well, so the first one to touch them were to see whatever she had put in there. The first time she had done it was to a rock that she had later on given him, who had laughed and told her she truly was special, in a good way.

She planned to use this part of her ability now, in a letter. He would be the first one to enter to read it, and she wanted to tell him something. She wanted him to once again see the memory that she again and again displayed in front of her when she was feeling unhappy.

There were paper and envelopes in one of her desk drawers, and she unhappily sat down to dedicate a meaningful letter to the one she loved with all her heart. It took her some time to find out what she wanted to tell him, but soon she knew she had chosen the right words, and carefully wrote them down.

With a little hesitation, she then touched the letter in that familiar way she did when she wanted to tell someone something without opening her mouth. In there, she placed one of the best memories she had of him and her together.

It was twilight, with the familiar pink color caressing the sky, blending together with the blue and the purple. The two of them were in the garden outside, alone, because the rest of her family was away. A light breeze was softly swirling around them, uniting them. She moved closer, feeling his skin next to her. They were both warm, but his temperature was just the littlest bit higher.

His dark, deep, eyes were staring into hers, and in that moment she had realized just how much she loved him, how much she needed and wanted him. So she told him, uttering those three words that he so often told her.

She would never forget his reaction. His eyes changed, melted, his lips parted just the littlest bit, his head lifted a little, as if to assure himself he had heard right. She could her vaguely how his heart rate sped up, how his grip around her tightened.

He had told her he loved her, too.

She wanted him to see this again, before she left. She wanted him to realize she still loved him, even though she had changed so much since then.

She knew he would never be the same after she left, but she tried hard not to think about that. She didn't want to imagine the consequences of her goodbye, afraid that they would take over her mind.

She rose from the chair, grabbing her bag along with the letter. Then she threw one last look at her room, hoping to remember it for a long time, and walked out the door.

Everything in the house was open, apart from the doors to the bedrooms, because at home they didn't have to hide. At home, they were themselves. At home, they didn't have to disguise themselves.

As her eyes floated over the modern furniture, she sighed. She walked down slowly, letting her free hand touch the wooden railing.

Her soft steps headed to the kitchen. The photos of him and her, together with the rest of her family, on the refrigerator, yelled at her, blinking like a sky trembling with fireworks.

She held the letter tight in her hand, the handwriting unmistakably hers. As she sealed the letter away and put it on the kitchen table, she broke a heart. A heart that would never really heal again.

Then, taking one last deep breath, she let her memorize her surroundings. _Home_, was her last thought before she turned around, towards the door, and faced what was going to be her new life.

She wouldn't come back.

The rain was falling softly down onto the russet fur of Jacob Black, who was running cheerfully home in his wolf form. It was just past midnight, and the moon's obvious brilliancy was weakened this night. The forest was dense around him as his paws time after time quickly let the ground fly by under him. He was moving fast, almost feeling the hard, cold, wind water his dark eyes. His breath created ghosts in the air has he ran, the wind was chillier than usual tonight.

Jacob had spent a few hours with his werewolf pack in Hartley Bay for the first time in months. He had missed them a lot, they were a part of him, and he found it difficult to live so isolated from his old life that he refused to give up. They were still staying in La Push, a little place in Washington, his old home, while he had chosen to live only a few years at the same place together with his girlfriend, imprint, the half-vampire Renesmee, and her vampire family.

He missed his wolf-brothers, some times were harder than others, but he didn't regret for a minute choosing to live with Renesmee. She made him happy, very happy. A life without her was not a life he could picture himself in.

After having spent only a few hours away from her, a missing ache in his chest was as strong as if he hadn't seen her for days. She didn't like coming along with him to meet his pack, she preferred to be home, alone. He had never questioned her decision.

As he reached home, he phased back into his human form again. He had left a pair of cut off shorts next to a tree in the garden, and quickly dressed before opening the door with a spare key that always lay under the doormat. It confused him a little – they rarely locked the door. Especially not when there was someone inside the house. Maybe she wanted to feel safe…

"Nessie!" he yelled happily, shutting the door behind him. "I'm back!"

There was something wrong, he could sense it in the air. Stubbornly he shook the feeling off of his mind. But yet it wouldn't disappear.

"Ness, hon', I'm home!" he yelled again, perhaps a little nervous as he reached the kitchen. Still not a sound. The second his eyes caught the sight of the white letter on the kitchen table, he knew. When his fingertips lightly touched it, and the memory displayed in front of him – that sweet, sweet, memory that would never leave him – he was sure.

_Dear Jacob,_

_I am so sorry. And even though I know that there is no proper excuse to what I've done, I had no choice. _

_You _will _continue without me, I know you will. Don't try to tell yourself anything else, because I know you better than you know yourself. Let me go, because I would do the same for you if I knew you needed it._

_I need this, and I think you've always known it, deep down._

_I love you, I will always, but it doesn't mean I will come back._

_I am so sorry._

_Love,_

_Renesmee_


	2. One

**Disclaimer: Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer. I just love to write with her characters. No copyright infringement intended. **

**One**

"_She's gone… She's left. She's – "_

"_Is she really gone? Is she? Where is she? Where? When will she be back?"_

"_Edward, is this really happening? Please tell me she'll be back, if she's really –"_

"_I thought-I thought. Doesn't she know we love her? Doesn't she understand that even though –"_

"_She's gone…"_

"_How could she? I thought – "_

The search for her never stopped. Day and night, for fifteen years, they hunted their missing family member. They left the house in hurry to search for her, never staying in any place longer than necessary. Always looking for her, always hoping she'd some day return, as though she had never been gone in the first place.

Those years were the longest ones any of them had ever experienced. Time dragged slowly by like sluggish turtles. Life was a burden for all of them, but at least they had each other. They weren't alone, like Jacob was.

The last few years, they searched only for Jacob's sake. Every one of them had lost hope of finding her. She was… gone, and nothing could seem to change that. But Jacob's relentless wish of wanting to find her in some way made the family continue looking. They did it for Jacob. Not for the girl that had left him. The girl they had almost ceased missing. They did it for the boy that had, with time, become a part of their family.

Jacob had no one. He didn't stop searching after fifteen years; he continued and continued without his family – who eventually settled down somewhere rainy, attempting to become happy enough to continue their lives again. Jacob rarely left his wolf form – he stubbornly ignored the pack's worrying tries to contact and persuade him to come home by thinking while in wolf forms. Whenever anyone of his old friends would attempt to follow him, he escaped by running. He was fast; they could never catch him in time, before they gave up. He succeeded partly in shutting off his human mind, simply focusing on three things; sleep, eat, Renesmee. He almost forgot his humanity; desperately searching for someone he deep down knew was out of reach.

Her scent was nowhere, and it tore him apart, because she had to be _somewhere. _She hadn't just _vanished. _Renesmee existed somewhere on this earth, she was still alive – he could feel it in his heart – and that fact kept torturing him. He never stopped searching, with immovable, childish, stubbornness he clung to the idea that he would find her, and that they would miraculously be reunited again.

But Jacob was living in a thick daze of dreams he wanted to come true. Reality was poking his shoulder, and he just continued to push it away, refusing to let go of hope. The last thing he would let go of was hope.

Hope somewhat kept him alive during that time, without her. It prevented him from collapsing and falling into an unbreakable state of… nothingness. Because he was nothing without her. All of his insides were gone, she had taken them with her. Unknowingly, she had packed the one Jacob she knew, and maybe – he wasn't sure – loved into that small bag that had been missing from their old house in Canada. The one she had taken with her.

But after 25 years, he finally ceased looking for her, returning to his family for lack of another place to go to. Even though their company was like someone was stabbing him from behind for every gaze he shot at the linked couples, he stayed with them. Mostly, he kept to himself. Rarely saying more than two words at a time, and only talking when he was spoken to. Emptiness had filled the once warm place where his heart was. He was unable to feel, his senses had been anesthetized by her absence.

Jacob would never be the same again. Wherever he looked, she was there. In every thought that crossed his – now almost empty – mind, it was only her. In every voice that reached his ears, he drew connections to hers. For every step he took, he was reminded of his past together with Renesmee, before the loneliness began eating him from inside. For every time the sun rose painfully slowly, and for every time it flew across the sky and set with an inexorable grace, his state grew more and more unchanged. He was stuck in an unending evil pattern.

The family tried, in vain, to help him. They tried so hard to help him out of the spider's web he had fallen into. But their kind attempts did less than nothing to his unchanging state. He was drowning in the nothingness that she so callously had left behind.

It wasn't fair. Jacob did not deserve this. Sunny, kind, funny, laughing, Jacob did not deserve being killed from inside like this. The entire family was aware of it, and as much as they tried to see past the awful truth, they knew that what Renesmee had done was unforgivable, that it had been an _evil_, _selfish, _decision. Didn't she understand the consequences?

Edward, Renesmee's father, was most aware of this, the one who was able to discern every thought of this idea in every mind of his family. And it pained him. It hurt him to know that the "new" Jacob was due to _his daughter_. He didn't know her anymore; he didn't understand how she could have been so cold. How she could have left with nothing more than a mere note, left tactlessly thrown on the kitchen table.

He tried to stay out of Jacob's mind, but mostly because he was scared to death of what he would find in there. As he watched Jacob, he realized what a fool he had once been, to think that Jacob was wrong for his daughter. It was the reverse; it was his daughter who was wrong for Jacob. No one deserved Jacob's state. No one.

Even Rosalie, the one with the darkest past with Jacob, pitied him. Even Rosalie contributed to the pointless attempts of cheering him up. Even Rosalie, who had once hated him more than her vampire state, sympathized for every time she caught a look of the ever-present pained expression in his eyes. Even Rosalie started to question the goodness of the girl she had raised like her own daughter as she saw how Jacob evolved into… nothing.

Sometimes Jacob wondered if it had just been a part of a charade from her side. Had everything been faked? Had she never felt anything for him in the first place? Had she only been with him to please her mother? The thought burned him like fire on bare skin. He hoped so strongly that she had once loved him enough it almost drove him insane.

He knew that his life would have been easier without her, that it would have spared him all this murdering pain that sucked the life of living out of him. But yet, he couldn't regret being with her, because those moments he had spent with her – when everything had been utter perfection – those moments were worth it all. No matter how much pain her abandonment had caused him, the life he had once had with her was enough. It was happiness enough for an entire lifetime. That was what he thought of every night, before he went to bed, trying to be grateful for what had once been.

He ceased doing things. He ceased caring for things. He just sat there, immobile, on the living room couch, pretending to be caught up in a TV-show about whales. But he couldn't fool his family.

At least he knew he was better off where he was. With _them_. _Her _family. With the people that had raised her, people who knew the girl he still deeply loved.

He didn't get it. He didn't understand what he had done wrong. He didn't comprehend what had made her hate the life she had lived so badly. He was positive it had something to do with him. He took the entire blame for her disappearance on himself. It was his fault, and he hated himself for not being able to keep her.

His grief was worse than the rest of the family combined. It was so visible. At least, the rest of them tried to go on with living. They didn't cease fighting with the huge, black, wave of heavy misery that so many times tried to drown them. They wanted things to go back to normal again, even only for a bit, so Jacob could at least try to handle the fact that she was gone. That there was nothing he could do about it.

Even Esme started to doubt her granddaughter, and it hurt for her. A lot. The loss of a family member was, at least to her, something that would never really heal. She took it every bit as hard as Edward and Bella. The ever-loving grandmother missed Renesmee just as much now as she had done during all of the years since she had gone. She still loved her. She hadn't forgiven her for what she had done, but she still loved her. And no matter how many times she would helplessly cry without tears when she was the only one in their new house, nothing would change. It killed her. Esme cried for her family, for the evil melancholy they were all in. She cried, because they didn't, for her, feel like a family anymore.

She rarely smiled, maybe once a month she let her small dimples show weakly as Carlisle assured her that things were going to be okay. Even though she didn't really believe it, she appreciated her husband's thoughtfulness. His never-ending efforts to make her happy, that was what made her smile.

"Esme!"

Just after they all had ceased searching for Renesmee, settling down in a small house in Alaska, Esme was suddenly missing. October had just set its foot inside the world's door, and the ground was at the moment, penetrated with small needles in the form of raindrops. It smattered evenly over the roof, making an annoying sound hover over the house.

"Esme?" Carlisle asked, not needing to yell, he knew every vampire in the house would hear him anyway. He was unable to hear her, he wondered why. She had been at his side thirty minutes ago, reading a book in the living room.

Confused, he quickly searched through the rooms of the house, not finding her.

_Edward, _he thought, _have you heard Esme? _

"No," a voice shortly afterwards confirmed.

He ran his hand through his hair in confusion, and by impulse stepped out the door to face the never-ending rain. His clothes were instantly damp by the heavy fall of water. As he looked up, the only things facing him were the tops of the trees of the woods – situated next to their house, so that feeding never would create a problem – and an unhappily gray sky, pouring down drops of water.

"Esme!" He had to yell outside, the rain was making other sounds a lot more distant and low. "Esme!" He ran – his legs in a blur – into the woods.

After a few seconds, he could distinguish what seemed to be the dry sobs of his wife. An intense worry hit his chest, and he pushed his speed further.

What had happened? She couldn't be hurt. Had she been out hunting? She hadn't told him. Why would she want to go out in this weather?

A lightning lit the sky, and a frightening sound of thunder, booming through the air, followed shortly afterwards.

Then he saw her, sitting on the ground, surrounded by wet autumn leaves. The rain had soaked her clothing, and her hair was hanging in wet, thick, strands, covering her face. Raindrops had made the impression of real tears running down her cheeks, and her eyes were, in a strange way, bloodshot, as if she was, indeed, crying.

Vampires couldn't cry.

"Esme!" Carlisle breathed in a sigh of relief, and was instantly at her side, wrapping his arms around her. She was shaking in his embrace, and sobbed uncontrollably as he stroked her wet hair. "Esme, Esme, love, what happened?" he worried anxiously, holding her tighter.

"C-Carlisle," she stumbled over the words, "Carlisle, it's so difficult, I just miss her so…"

Her statement was followed by complete silence from his side; the only thing audible was the sound of their even breaths, and the hammering rain. Carlisle was quiet as he consoled his wife. He had nothing to say, there was nothing for him to tell her, that would make things better.

It wasn't easy for Bella and Edward either. The thought that maybe it was how they had raised Renesmee that had caused her to leave always lurked in the back of their minds. The two of them, just like Jacob, sometimes childishly took the blame for their runaway daughter's actions.

Seeing the new Jacob devastated Bella every day, nearly eclipsed the betrayal of her missing daughter. Jacob was still her best friend; their relationship hadn't changed during the years, except that Jacob's romantic feelings for her had vanished. And to see the brightly shining star that had once illuminated her life being blown out was, for Bella, much harder than facing her daughter's absence.

As Jacob reached yet another level of complete grief, it was now openly official among the family that if Renesmee were to come back, she would not be met with opening, welcoming, arms. She would, of course, not be left outside, as if her place in the family had vanished, but they would not welcome her, as they would have if Jacob had never entered their family and been so utterly destroyed by her.

It was not something any of them spoke openly of; it lingered in the air, everyone aware of it. Most aware of all was Edward, who couldn't, not even for one minute, comprehend why his daughter had left their family, destroying everyone and everything she left behind. Nor could Bella find any hope in her everyday any longer. Of course, she had Edward, the one she craved and needed more than anyone, but to lose the one and only daughter she would ever have, was for her more cruel and painful than anything else.

Two vampires normally couldn't have a baby together, but Bella had become pregnant while she was still human. When Renesmee was born, Bella was turned into a vampire, frozen in youth, watching how her daughter grew up and quit growing when she was physically 18.

Edward and Bella tried to soothe each other, but it wasn't enough. Though they found some solace and consolation in each other, having to see the result of her abandonment every day tore at them. It was like a knife's edge, being pressed slowly, but deliberately, towards fragile, human, skin, the wound deepening every day, never ceasing to bleed or attempting to heal.

Edward tried. His good heart really tried. It just… he was too damaged to reach a result. And Bella was too devastated and miserable to make more of an effort.

Jacob couldn't appreciate the thoughtfulness of the family. He couldn't emotionally take in the encouraging words they ever so often selflessly gave to him. It was impossible, he just couldn't. There was nothing left inside of him anymore… he was emptied. Suddenly, it became difficult to _feel_, he had trouble recognizing emotions that one time had been so easy for him to identify.

Renesmee had made him numb, unable to feel.

Jacob saw what his state did to the members of the family, and in his grey fog of grief, he felt a little bit bad for them. He had long ago ceased hating them, but never really found the time to try to get over the grudge he had so long held for them. But as he regarded their suffering alongside him, he began to think of them more as… people rather than monsters. And it helped a little for him.

After the long search for her, he rarely phased into his wolf form. It just seemed so distant for him now, something that he just couldn't find the will to do anymore. Now, he could control it, since there were no fits of anger surprising him from behind, due to his numbness.

Even though he was living in a house full of vampires, he didn't phase anymore. He learned to control himself, and figured that that was the key to return to his normal, human, life, which would, eventually, be leading to his death. Death… so peaceful, a friendly intruder in his tortured life.

One thing, he knew clearly. He _refused _to go back to his pack. _No, no, no, NO! _He wouldn't, he couldn't. They didn't understand, they never would. He would _not _feel better by going back to them, it would only make him worse. Seeing them together, happy and united with their imprints, it would be more than torture for him, the pain would grow into something unbearable. He couldn't… He just couldn't… They wouldn't be able to make him live again. It would only be horrible to be reminded of his own imprint.

So when Carlisle and Bella together decided that they were to move back to Forks, they didn't realize the vigorous protests they would meet.

A Sunday morning, with Jacob – of course – still in bed, Bella deliberately walked into his room.

"If this is about me getting out of bed, don't count on it," Jacob rebelled as soon as he realized his privacy was being abducted.

Bella sighed, biting her lip. "Jake – "

"No." He switched position, lying on his other side, against the wall, facing away from her.

Bella was perfectly aware of Jacob's thought of her proposal, only not how prominent these thoughts actually were.

"I've talked to Carlisle," she said, sitting down on the bed.

He yawned, slowly rising, and then walked towards his desk – angled away from the bed – sat down, and looked out the window.

"Okay," he said. A little part of him wondered what the hell talking to Carlisle had to do with him. She did it every day. Almost.

"We're thinking about moving back to Forks." She bit her lip again.

Jacob froze, and a millisecond afterwards Edward appeared, the same time it took for Jacob to get up from his chair.

"Don't even think about it," Edward assured him, putting him back on the chair by pushing him down with his index finger.

The following events were not pretty, involving yelling, protesting, and even a little fighting, but somehow Jacob ended up sitting at his desk again, his mind still convinced that he would stay exactly where he was.

"Think about it, Jake," Bella encouraged, sitting in his room on the small bed he refused to throw out, while he was bent over something non-existing on his desk, probably studying the uneven surface of the table. "At least a little." And then she rose to softly kiss his cheek and left him alone in his room, to think about it. Bella was hoping he might come.

He kept refusing to tell Bella he would follow, he kept telling them that he would be fine without them, that _they _could move, and that he could stay where they were at the moment, alone. But he wasn't aware of that it had been Bella's idea in the first place, always Bella's idea. Because she knew how much Jacob, deep down, loved his wolf-brothers. Bella knew Renesmee's Jacob, and she clung to the idea that he was still down there, somewhere.

Numerous times Bella tried to convince him to go back, promising that he wouldn't have to go to La Push, softly assuring him that he wouldn't even notice that the pack was there. _He'll come around_, she thought. Only, he wouldn't.

Yet, he agreed anyway. But Bella didn't know that he had never really thought about it at all. He had done it to please her. Instead, all he could think of when moving back to Forks entered his mind was how much it would hurt to go back to the place where it had all started. But if going back to Forks made Bella happy, he decided that it would be worth it.

So, they all moved to the cold, rainy, Forks, where their pale faces looked gray in the feeble light, where they could be outside in the day due to the huge cover of massive, cashmere, grey that made the sky invisible. And so they moved back to Forks. Forks, where it all started.

They enrolled high school, pretending to be kids again. And so, Jacob tried to act as if his past had been a dark nightmare, dreamed long enough time ago to pale with time. Jacob continued to lie to himself.


	3. Two

**Disclaimer: Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer. I just love to write with her characters. No copyright infringement intended. **

**Two**

**Forks, America**

**March 19****th**** 2089**

Every day at exactly 8.04 AM, a little blue Smart Car would pull up in front of Forks High School, parking in the exact same spot every time. No one else parked in that space, mostly because it was just next to the trashcans, a filthy area littered with everything from soda cans to old cigarette packs and candy bar wrappers. All of the students were too lazy to actually _put _their trash _into _the trashcans.

No one dared to park there apart from one girl, one very different girl from everyone else. Her name was Rebecca, or Becca, Newton. She was sixteen, and her family had lived in the small town of Forks for generations.

She was different, distant, unusual in ways hard to mark in words. It just hovered over her, like some sort of stubborn cloud of rain. Others noticed it, too, and she was aware of it.

It wasn't just only how she dressed, colorful, rainbow-ish, mixed patterns, huge earrings hidden under her brown, curly, locks that always hung free. No, it wasn't that, even though there weren't many of her kind in Forks High School.

Part of it was in her gaze, an icy, blue, one so penetrating some people even flinched when she stared at them too intensely. Maybe most of it was probably in her, sometimes distant, mood. How she would drift away into her own little bubble. The fact that she didn't really care for anything at all – well, except for maybe math class and Mrs. O'Dell. Mrs. O'Dell who would always tell her what a talented kid she was at the subject – also contributed to the difference.

She hated that part of herself, and it didn't matter how much she tried to stop or hide it, because it would still always be there when she didn't focus thoroughly. It was obviously a part of how she was, and she hated it. Becca loathed herself, and she didn't know that that was what made her stick out the most among her classmates.

Maybe it wasn't that hard to guess, but no one around her was observant enough to notice her loneliness. No other students, not even her _so-called friends _cared if she was happy or not, sad or upset. They didn't even notice if she broke her boring, monotone, pattern and once in a while cracked a smile onto those, almost unnaturally, red, lips.

She thought of herself as the loneliest person in the world. And maybe she was.

Becca's friends, Sarah and Harper, had everything one could wish for. Or, almost. To Becca they did, because they had each other. No matter what happened, they would always be friends. Becca missed that feeling, even though she had never actually experienced it.

It was Sarah and Harper. Oh right, and Rebecca. The girl no one actually wanted. She was a burden to them. They never exactly told her, but she noticed it anyway.

And then there were the hugs. Hugs, those excluding hugs. They proved where your real place actually was, whether you were a part of something, or if you were merely an inconvenience to everyone else, a fifth wheel. The exclusion was so clear in the air, so thick one could carve it out with a knife. Loneliness and invisibility were two prominent everyday occurrences for her. They followed everywhere, haunted her like ghosts until she ceased to care.

They came with every goodbye, with every greeting. And they occurred every so often, several hugs to every person every day, one for each time they happened to see each other. And the friends saw each other often. They weren't close, not even close enough to sometimes have lunch together, but obviously close enough to stubbornly embrace every other hour.

She would never ever get used to it. She would never get used to the feeling of never being good enough for anyone. It hurt every time she noticed how someone's gaze went right through her. She wasn't even there. Not for them. She would never be. She was doomed.

Sometimes Rebecca wondered what she had done to become so… excluded from everyone else. Was she asocial? Maybe she was a bad person? What exactly was the problem? Maybe she was looked upon as strange, thanks to the fact that she would sometimes sink into an unbreakable trance for just a few moments, where she would be caught up in some sort of non-mattering thoughts. Apparently it was enough to make her a freak.

One morning, in the end of a long March, Rebecca woke with a mind-numbing headache.

_Migrane… _

Her head was officially exploding, her eyes almost coming out of their round sockets. The fatigue was suffocating her like a huge rock was resting on her chest, while it felt as if someone was trying to squeeze all her body fluids out.

Gosh – she wanted to ditch school so badly in that moment. Just let herself be absent for one more last day before she would start taking her education again.

But she had promised her mom, she had promised her to stop behaving as she did. She had promised her to start caring again, at least a little. She had promised she wouldn't ditch school ever again, she had promised to make an attempt to go to school as everyone else.

There was always at least one like her in every school, one like Becca. One who wouldn't freaking give a shit if everything around her got sucked up into some huge hole that ruined everything while she was the only one left. There was always one who would simply roll their eyes at everything, purposefully turning off their brains when class started.

Becca did.

It didn't exactly help her grades.

But from now on she would at least _go_ to classes. Normally, she ditched most of them to hang out in La Push, at First Beach, alone with a pack of cigarettes in her hands, smoking like a horse, while looking at the ocean. The beautiful, free, ocean. Sometimes she even spotted whales far, far, away. She then usually smiled happily to herself, thinking life wasn't all that bad.

A reason to why she liked the place so much, was that First Beach wasn't exactly crowded. Especially not during the hours that Becca often spent there. But once in a while, beefy, tan, giants of the hot sort – their half nakedness not making them less appealing – would casually stroll down the boulevard of wet, cold, sand. Sometimes even without shoes, taking away Rebecca's possession of being the only one there.

It didn't bother her, but she liked being alone there, all by herself. It made her feel less guilty for smoking at sixteen.

Her mom hadn't noticed anything until a few months ago. It was Ms. O'Dell who had told her.

Rebecca liked Ms. O'Dell, she liked math. She understood, all of it. It was the only subject she didn't find a complete waste of time. She never ditched math class. At least not regularly.

But she had started to, those few months ago, the hardest months where nothing had been right. When all she wanted to do was to watch the whales, feel the moist wind blow the locks of hair away from her face, inhale the fresh air and just listen to the peaceful sound of the waves crushing against the golden sand.

Ms. O'Dell didn't notice Becca's usual absence right away; it took a while for her to solidify her thoughts and suspicions into concrete words and meanings. But when it all dawned for her, and she understood how Rebecca simply preferred to not go to school compared to going, she told Mrs. Newton right away.

It sort of made Becca hate Ms. O'Dell. But not really. Deep, deep, _deep_, down, she was aware – sort of – that the period had to come to an end.

And sneaky as her mom was, she didn't say anything at first. She chose to confirm her newly received information by checking with other teachers, playing a part and pretending to apologize for her daughter's usual absence, explaining it as a natural consequence of her father's death.

It didn't take long to find out enough. Suddenly, without warning, just like that, like a bomb, Ginger dropped it to Becca. She demanded an explanation, and a thorough one. Not one of those old white lies about how Becca had run a temperature she ever so often pulled on her.

Rebecca didn't have one.

Those difficult months had been hard, because they had in a strange way brought her back to the past. When her dad had lived. When they had laughed together, played together, _been _together. Just been together, when she had known he was in the room next to her, and that he wouldn't leave, ever. That he would stilly sit in front of his desk typing away important e-mails to his important colleagues, a part of his important job.

Rebecca blamed herself for his death, while she at the same time knew that she had had nothing to do with it. But it was difficult to grasp the fact that he was dead, and that he wasn't coming back, and that maybe it was partly her fault. There were two personalities, one that insisted that if Becca had only _known _he had been as unhappy as he had been, if she had only maybe been a better daughter by making him a little happier by maybe drawing him something, or telling him something funny that had happened in school once in a while.

Michael, Ginger's wife, had run away when Becca was ten. There hadn't been as much of a little indication of that he had once existed, until about a month later, when an innocent, normal, citizen of Seattle found him dead in a men's bathroom. He had killed himself.

Back then; Becca had tried to picture it all, how it would have looked like. Maybe because she wanted to convince the part of her that didn't actually believe that Dad was dead, that he was. That he _wouldn't _come back, it didn't matter how much she wanted him to.

But she always failed. She couldn't understand it. It hadn't been her dad. Her dad, mom's husband, didn't do… that. He didn't. Her dad was just like everyone else's dad. Normal… He was normal, right?

She wasn't so sure anymore.

But nothing of the past displayed inside of her head as the migraine slowly but surely attempted to kill her. At least it felt that way.

Thirty-seven seconds later, the alarm rang. Becca squeezed her eyes shut even tighter. _One minute more, just one minute more… _

She got twenty-five seconds.

"Bex?"

"Yes," she mumbled, eyes closed, focusing on some sort of weird complicated pattern on the inside of her eyelids.

"It's morning," her mom said as if it was the clearest thing in the world. For Rebecca it wasn't.

"I'm up," she assured her groggily, still not moving.

"I'm driving you to school today."

Rebecca's eyes instantly flew open, also widening into a remarkable size. She sat up, ignoring the migraine. Her mom was standing in the doorway to her room, looking just as tired as Becca felt.

"What?"

Ginger bit her lip. "You heard me."

"Fat chance," Becca said, getting out of the bed in search for her migraine pills. She knew they were located somewhere on her desk, just not where…

"No, I'm serious."

"You know if I wanna ditch I just leave the minute you drop me off."

Her mom didn't say anything. Rebecca quietly stopped her search, staring at the piles of nothing stacked on her desk.

"Okay, fine!" She turned and faced her mom. "_Fine_, you can drive me to school. Okay. But then you have to friggin' get me afterwards as well."

Her mom sighed. "Yeah, I know." She didn't leave. "Bex, I'm just worried."

"You've said that multiple times, yes," Becca said while gripping her migraine pills.

"But – "

"Now, if you don't mind I'll just go swallow some of these," she interrupted, while waving the box in front of her mother's face.

"Oh, sorry. Didn't know you had –"

"Yeah, yeah, now you know."

Then she walked out of her room and slammed the door to the bathroom shut.

She didn't mean to be so rude. She always felt bad afterwards, but it was just so hard to stop it. Especially when the migraines came. And they always did, sooner or later. But they passed, and then she had nothing to blame her behavior on.

Another reason to hate herself.

The ride to school was quiet. All that was audible was the monotone, ever so common, noise of the huge drops of rain crashing against the car window, and getting frequently wiped away by the windshields. Rebecca leaned further back into her seat.

It was almost _always _raining in Forks. On the few occasions of where the sky _wouldn't _stubbornly open up like a bucket of water and drain the green landscape, sometimes people even took out their cameras, photographing friends and family laughing, without stripes of see-through water ruining the picture. The rain was a part of every life in Forks, an inevitable burden to some, while a soothing noise of consolation for others.

Becca didn't really mind the rain. She had gotten used to it a long time ago, bearing in mind that Forks was the only place she had lived in. Almost every single face in the small town was familiar to her; she knew the place inside and out.

But she wasn't sick of it. She was… neutral. She didn't bother – she didn't _care_. It didn't cross her mind. The thought of being sick of Forks had never actually entered her mind, and it wouldn't. Not when First Beach was a fifteen-minute drive away, or when the old corner store next to her Grandpa's sports' good store let her by cigarettes without showing ID.

"Have fun," her mom said, attempting to sound cheery as they pulled up in front of the familiar parking lot. Her mom never parked at the trash cans, she held some sort of strange grudge for places not clean enough.

Rebecca rolled her eyes, but forced a smile onto her dry lips. "Thanks."

"I'll pick you up at four."

"Do so."

Then she stepped out of the car and walked towards the door she seldom voluntarily walked through.

_You promised, you promised, you promised. You promised you would do this, so now fucking do it. _

She kept repeating to herself that it was necessary as she walked down the claustrophobic hallway lined with the same, endless, blue lockers. God, she hated this place. At least first period was math, at least there was that. She tried to be positive.

Harper was standing with her locker open a distance away. She looked up, her long, light brown, ponytail swinging, a faint smile spread across her lips.

"Hi, Becca."

"Hi," she answered casually, trying to sound optimistic.

"Haven't seen you since this Monday." Today was Thursday. "Where've you been?"

Rebecca uncomfortably shifted her gaze towards the floor. She wasn't comfortable with letting people in on what she was doing. Both Harper and Sarah knew, but not because Becca had told them – they had guessed. And she supposed it wasn't that hard to figure out.

Harper understood. "Oh. Okay."

"Yeah," she apologized.

And then the topic of her frequent ditching was over with. It was a relief. She knew Harper didn't actually care anyway.

The three of them, Sarah, Harper and Rebecca, had been friends since third grade, where they had, to their greatest delight, found out that all of their dads shared the same name, Michael. And since that day, they had been inseparable. At least for a while.

But then, when Becca's dad died, things had started to change. The bond between Sarah and Harper had grown stronger every day, while the only bonds Becca possessed had slowly weakened, lost touch.

Sarah and Harper knew what had happened. But they still didn't understand why Rebecca had changed so drastically. Probably because none of them had went through anything like what Rebecca had, or what Rebecca _was going _through.

Deep down, she thought it was her fault. But in a strange way, it felt better to blame it on others. She felt a little less of a freak, when she told herself it wasn't _her _fault she was commonly disliked among people.

Sarah came shortly after, a shy, white, smile plastered on her pretty face. Becca liked her a little better, she was tactful enough to not ask where she had been, maybe because she was a shy person who often let Harper decide her actions.

There was something in Sarah's behavior that made Becca feel welcome. Even though their time together was often accompanied by silence, it didn't matter. Sarah's few, but very convincing, comforting smiles were a reminder of that she hadn't forgotten Becca. At least when they were alone.

Sometimes, when the two of them were alone together, it was as if things got back to normal. Becca was no longer the odd man out, the emo-kid without a dad. No, she was just normal. She badly wished it to be that way.

"Hi, you guys," she said happily in her light pitch, hugging them both a little awkwardly. It was a little comforting, familiar in a way.

Shortly afterwards, school started.

At lunch, Becca was ready to die. She had forgotten how it actually was, how the cruel pattern gave her bruises. She did not belong here – she knew it. High school wasn't that important, was it?

All three of them had lunch together, Becca not eating, as usual. They didn't ask why, they never did. Sometimes Rebecca wondered if they even noticed. They probably didn't.

While sitting at the table, watching them talk and laugh… _eat_, the last part disgusted her. She tried hard not to stare at their food, tried hard not to think of food at all, tried hard not to picture herself eating.

Becca didn't need food, not with her figure. She was fat. At least, she was convinced she was. She couldn't bring herself to eat, she simply couldn't. It disgusted her. She disgusted herself – she hated how she looked. Becca was one fat, disgusting, girl among an entire ocean full of thin, perfect, pretty, girls.

She _wanted_ to be thin, healthy, and have to-die-for muscles. Not look like a freaking meatball. Because that was what she was.

In the beginning, she had searched around the Internet for suitable diets. Because _maybe those would help?_ she had thought. Of course, later, she had convinced herself that stop eating entirely probably was the most efficient way of changing her figure. Yes, it had to be. She only drank. And strictly water. Some cereal with milk or a fruit in the morning to fool her mom, and a minimal dinner to keep up the charade, but no lunch. No, no. _Absolutely _not.

_Ew, just ew. _

Why couldn't she be like everyone else? Normal? Normal, which also equaled that so familiar word starting with a t, then an h, finishing with in.

She had stopped feeling hungry a long time ago. And she took that as a sign that it was working, that finally maybe she was loosing weight. Or maybe because she didn't need to eat, that her body was taking energy from her disgusting fat plastered all across her body.

Although every time she stepped onto that goddamned scale, the red shining numbers always disappointed her. _Not fast enough. _She wanted to cry out in desperation. _Fuck everything! _How fucking hard can it be to just fucking lose some weight? How hard can it be just to be like everyone else, why couldn't she be like thin Sarah, or muscular Harper?

In the beginning, everything had been fine. When she first had stopped eating, she had actually felt good. Physically. Healthy, happy, almost… overly energetic? Things went by as nothing, she was more active in Gym than ever.

But after a while, things had taken a drastic turn. Nowadays, Becca was often tired, sick, dizzy, ready to faint, and a weird stomachache was almost always torturing her. But she was convinced that this was because of bad genes, and not because she wasn't eating. It couldn't be. She was just trying to lose weight.

And she hadn't told anyone about the period. The stupid fucking period who wouldn't come! Not even her mom knew. Her mom, her mom who she usually never kept secrets from. Apparently, not anymore.

No one could know – they would jump to the wrong conclusions. They would think that it was because of the fact that she never ate, that she was starving herself. She couldn't tell anyone, the others were wrong! It _wasn't _because of that – she _knew _it.

It would come, she kept telling herself. But a little part inside of her, a part that she seldom let surface, was growing more worried for every day that passed.

Government class was after lunch, and it was one of those classes which name screamed out exactly how she felt about it. _So fucking boring_, that is. First Beach, or at least home, seemed so far away as she and Sarah and Harper went separate ways. They were buying a Diet coke from the soda automat outside of Gym, while she was going to her locker to get her books. Books she knew she wouldn't need anyway.

Books… She had never liked reading, and she couldn't for one minute understand why it _always had to be about the goddamned reading. _Why couldn't they watch movies? Or maybe listen and for once _not _take notes? Just listen, because it stuck in your brain anyway.

She felt a sting of something she hadn't felt in weeks – hunger – as she swiftly did the combination to her locker, and ignored it as best as she could. She quickly pushed the thought away as she slammed the locker door shut.

_No, you shouldn't eat, you fat, icky, ugly, gross…_

"Uh, hi?"_ …girl._ Someone was in front of her. "I'm new here, do you know where Government class is?" She was interrupted by an unfamiliar boy, whose voice indicated that he didn't actually care. What a coincidence, _neither did she._

She didn't bother to disguise her irritation as she woke up from her trance to look into a face _way _far up. Gosh that guy was tall. With black hair as well in a sort of tousled, messy way. And biceps. A lot of biceps. In fact, there was muscle everywhere, as far as she could see.

"Hi," she said simply, rudely shifting her gaze somewhere behind him and purposefully ignoring his question. She fingered a little with the ring she had on her index finger. It was her favorite one, and she was rarely seen without it. It was a silver ring, with a huge, pink, plastic, flower in the middle.

He waited for exactly four seconds until he asked again.

"Government class?" he finally said.

She looked at him again. They were in the same class. She raised her eyebrows, and then stood upright from her previous position leaning against the lockers.

"Follow me."

She spotted a little indication of relief in his eyes. _So he did care. _

He walked silently behind her as they switched buildings. She hadn't planned to come so early to class, but figured the least she could do was to give muscle-boy a little guiding help. It was cold outside, and she involuntarily shivered at the wind, hoping the new guy behind her wouldn't see it.

Government was in building four, and finally she stopped in front of the open door. Some students were already there, in the classroom. But only the ambitious ones, the ones who _cared_. The ones who re-read their notes before class to grill the teacher with questions. It was unlike her to arrive the same time as them.

"Thanks," he said, looking a little strangely at her when she apparently didn't walk away.

"This is my next class, too," she explained, opening her bag to take out a gum. "You want?" she offered while chewing a little more exaggerated than necessary. He shook his head. _Maybe he thought it was poisoned. _

"You a sophomore, too?" she wondered.

He nodded.

_You sure as hell don't look like a sophomore. More like… 20? Hell, even _more_! _

"Maybe we should go in?" he said hesitantly, eyeing the open door uncomfortably. Forks High School was intimidating him. Not that she blamed him.

She shrugged her shoulders, while still chewing her gum loudly. "Sure." He went in, but she waited a little, until more students had gathered.

She wasn't exactly waiting for Sarah and Harper, but they came anyway. Of course, together. Walking close next to each other, giggling and whispering, laughing at funny, private, moments only they had shared together. Thoughts she wasn't allowed to share with them. She pretended that it didn't actually matter to her.

"Oh, hi Becca," Harper greeted as they saw her waiting in front of the classroom door.

"Hi."

"Where were you?" Harper didn't actually care; she was perfectly fine without Rebecca's relentless company. At least that was the impression Becca got.

"Just showing this new guy to class."

Harper's eyes lit. "Oh, was it that, like, Indian, _huge _dude who came this Monday?"

Rebecca nodded, although she didn't know about the Monday-part. It was weird, new students in the middle – or almost – of the semester were rare.

Harper smiled. "Wow. Gosh, he is _so_ –"

"What? Who? I… I haven't seen anyone new," Sarah asked curiously, shifting between Rebecca's face and Harper's.

Harper frowned. "You haven't seen him? How could you have missed him?"

Sarah blushed. "I don't know, I haven't noticed anyone new. Not since September."

"You haven't seen the new family either?" Harper frowned again. "It's so weird, they all came at once, like, _now_."

"What new family?" Sarah wondered, and Rebecca posed the question as well, just not saying it out loud.

"You know, the Cullens or something like that."

"A family?" Sarah wanted to know.

"You didn't see them at lunch? They've sat at the same table this entire week, you know that one next to the entrance. There's six of them, and then it's that huge Indian dude."

Becca immediately knew what Harper was talking about. She had noticed there were new people in the cafeteria mere minutes ago. From the corner of her eye, she had spotted the beautifully pale people sitting quietly, just watching their food. Maybe they, like Rebecca, didn't eat either. Although that didn't seem quite right, since all of them had had perfect bodies to die for.

But muscle-boy hadn't been at the table. At least, she hadn't seen him. Most likely because she had been so captured in her own little bubble. Ugh.

"They're three girls and four boys," Harper continued. "And they're all…" She paused. "I mean, they're _so_… _pretty_. It's insane, because all of them are like… so hot. They're like… perfect."

Sarah's eyes lit. "_Oh! _You mean _them_? I didn't think of them, because you know, I mean, I… They look really perfect, everything in place and… no flaws at all, like… I didn't think of them as new _students_, though. They were… too… I don't know but-but I didn't notice the Indian guy though," she added thoughtfully.

"Well, hun, you're about to," Harper said with a smile. "I wonder if he's dating anyone," she mused.

"But… who starts a new school _now?_ I mean it's the middle of March, and-and that's really weird, right? Hop in in the middle of the semester?" Sarah pointed out.

"Yeah, I know, right? It's really weird," Harper agreed, just before class started. The first class Becca shared with Jacob Black.

**A/N: Review for a ****preview****! :D Thanks for reading! Thanks to my beta Vanessa James!**


	4. Three

**Disclaimer: Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer. No copyright infringement intended. **

**Three**

**Forks, America**

**March 20****th**** 2089**

Jacob Black saw his new high school life as merely a pattern he _had _to follow every day. It was necessary. Not for him, but for some other unknown reason that his family apparently was aware of. He was the only one complaining and groaning of his new faith in the car on the way to the first day of school, while all of the others, Edward, Bella, Alice and Jasper, merely sat quiet, Edward desperately putting on the radio behind the wheel. Rosalie and Emmett were driving in another car to school.

What had pissed him off most that first day, was that he hadn't been allowed to drive on his own, with his Volkswagen Rabbit, to school. His Rabbit was his precious toy, the car he had built on his own, from scratch. Even though Esme and Carlisle had on numerous occasions insisted on buying him a new car, he had never accepted their offers. The Rabbit was his pet. He loved it, even though the red color had rusted in a lot of places, and that it sometimes made a weird noise when he started the engine. It didn't matter. It was as if it was his rebound from Nessie.

Nessie…

Things hadn't really gotten better as he found out he was pretending to be a sophomore. Yes, a _sophomore_. _Younger _than the rest of them. Bella, Edward and Alice were juniors, and Emmett, Rosalie and Jasper were seniors. And Jacob was a sophomore. Jacob, who, frankly speaking, looked like the oldest one of them. Even though he still was, technically, sixteen.

Only Jacob wouldn't become older, not until he could control his werewolf-form, until he could prevent himself from phasing back and forth. Although this had decreased visibly during the past year, he was still far from flawlessly being able to control himself.

So yeah, to say he was pissed was, sort of, an understatement. Jacob was furious. Furious, because he had been dragged to this minimal town where the great-grand children of his old friends were the same age as him now. Pissed off because he wasn't allowed to just sit home and mope around, grieving the loss of his insides. Angry, because he had to _pretend_ that he was something he wasn't – a normal sixteen-year old guy.

It wasn't as though he had been greeted welcoming on his first day either. No, all he got was this emo-bitch showing him to Government class as if he was a criminal. During lunch, he had had to keep up with the uncomfortable silence hovering over the table with Bella and company, when he deep down wanted to sit alone at the table and just be his new personality, moping, grumpy-Jake.

Though he had to admit, the fact that La Push was so much closer than before was sort of inviting. All of his childhood memories, collected in one, tiny, place, that town was just a fifteen-minute drive away. Where his Dad had lived before he passed away, his old school, the familiar woods, the cold ocean… All of that.

He wasn't going there, though. Not with the pack there, not with all of those goddamn guys trying to understand how he felt and console him as if he was a fucking messed up girl with an unhappy heartbreak. Yeah, right. Good luck.

Sure, he wasn't the only one who'd gone through the… loss of an imprint. But Sam, and Jared, and Quil, and Paul, and Leah, all of them had imprinted, like, a _month _afterwards. Jacob had been without Rensmee for 25 _years_. She wasn't dead, she _existed_. They didn't understand. He heard their thoughts when he was in his wolf-form, since the pack was connected mentally as wolves. He felt nauseous just thinking of their naïve attempts of helping him. He didn't need them.

The second day, he drove to school himself. Tenaciously, he ignored their gazes as he, instead of stepping into the new, silver, Volvo, walked towards his Rabbit and childishly backed out of the garage as if he hadn't done anything out of the ordinary at all.

All this shit about _family _Carlisle talked about all the time, driving to school together, eating together, only speaking to each other, no one else, it was making him feel a bit uncomfortable.

Even though Carlisle was one of the nicest bloodsuckers Jacob had ever met, he had started to doubt his words of wisdom after Renesmee's disappearance. When he had stopped caring.

"You drove to school on your own today," Bella stated, rather accusingly while using her now usual sleek vamp-voice, at their usual lunch table a few hours later. He had no classes with them at all, and Jacob didn't know if he was happy or irritated about that. After Bella's words, he aimed at the first one.

He watched as she sadly looked at him from where she sat next to him, Edward at her side, staring at something distant in front of him, but still seeming ready to protect, hold, console or save Bella.

"Yeah," he said, now noticing that it had hurt her. It stung instantly. He didn't like hurting her, knowing how much the Nessie-topic had torn her apart. Also, he still saw her one of his closest friends.

"Jacob I didn't know you wanted to drive her so bad."

He was quiet.

"Just tell us next time."

"Is it really that big a deal?" he demanded, staring at Bella. Edward tensed next to her, averting his gaze.

Alice sighed. "Guys, just let Jacob drive which car he wants." She waved her hand mindlessly in the air, sinking back into her trance, probably seeing something. Her vampire ability was seeing the future. Though she couldn't see Jacob, or Renesmee for that part. She could only see vampires and humans, because that was what she was, and what she had been.

Alice had also withered like a flower without water without her niece. She wasn't the happy, enthusiastic, girl you really envied anymore. She was a little freaky, often just sinking into her own place, seeing visions of the future. Jacob didn't like her as much anymore, even though she sometimes had moments that were pretty okay. For being someone like her at least.

"Whatever," Rosalie muttered, playing with the lid to her plastic cup. None of the Cullens ate, due to their vampire-diet, which consisted only of animal blood thanks to Carlisle's good heart. They didn't hunt humans, like other vampires.

Jacob was the only one to eat real food, as the human he was. Sometimes he thought it was a waste of food for them to just buy meals, without even starting them.

Bella nervously bit her lip, and Jacob sighed again.

"Sorry," he mumbled.

She smiled weakly. "I just don't want you to be alone all the time."

"I'm not."

"How was yesterday?"

"It sucked."

She didn't say anything else, so he finished the meal and clumsily put his tray away. Then he left the cafeteria.

At the same time, in another part of the cafeteria, the emo-bitch from Government class was suffering from indecision and bad conscience.

Rebecca Newton, together with Sarah Hampton and Harper Yorkie, was about to face something horrible, at least for her.

"Becca," Sarah slowly started. There was something in her voice, something Becca couldn't recognize. "Um, here, take this," she continued hesitantly, rolling an apple across the table towards her that had just been on her tray.

Becca watched, puzzled, as it rolled towards her. With a confused look on her face, she focused her gaze on the red, shiny, fruit that got closer and closer until it was finally in front of her. Then she looked up to meet Sarah's eyes, perplexed. They knew she didn't eat. At least not lunch. She hadn't since… a really long time ago. When she thought of it, it was difficult to remember the last time she had eaten something in this cafeteria.

Sarah stared apologetically back at Becca, excusing herself with her eyes, her lips pressed together in a nervous gesture. Her fingers anticipatingly knotted into each other were visible next to her tray.

The truth then hit Becca, the meaning behind Sarah's action entered her head. The apple-gesture was suddenly interpreted.

_Oh. My. Freakin'. God._

Sarah wanted her to _eat_. She had noticed how Becca never had lunch, how she quietly just sat at the table, trying to hide the fact that she was disgusted by her never-ceasing-eating friends. She frowned while staring at the apple, then averting her gaze to Sarah. What the fuck?

Why would she do that? Was she jealous, just because Becca was getting thin? Was that why she was trying to give Becca something to eat? Did she want Becca to grow fat, like she had been before? Maybe Sarah missed the repulsive ball of fat, rolling its way to school and back every day, which had once been Rebecca.

But _if _Sarah were jealous, why would she give Becca an _apple_, a fruit? Why not a huge sandwich, filled with things that made her feel sick to her core, something that would surely help her to gain fat? Why _would _she be jealous? She had never been before, at least never showing the awkward feeling.

Becca glared back at Sarah, demanding an explanation with her eyes. She was angry, angry for Sarah wanting to change the decision she had made long ago, an inexorable decision that wouldn't change. Why couldn't Becca decide for herself what she wanted to do?

Sarah blinked as Becca noticed that Harper's questioning gazes had entered their conversation. She sighed, not wanting Harper getting involved as well.

"Eat it," Sarah encouraged.

_It's just an apple… It's just an apple, Bex. Nothing dangerous, it's a _fruit_. Vitamins, good stuff. The ones you like to have for dinner… _

But she never ate lunch, _ever_. She had always told herself, that if she stopped eating lunch, she would loose those pounds in an instant. Only: _WHY_ _wasn't it helping?_

"Why?" she demanded, trying to hide her furious insides. She didn't need lunch. Lunch was the meal she disgusted the most – she didn't need it. At all. God, she couldn't believe that someone had just rolled her an _apple_.

"Because… because it's not healthy to skip lunch every day. I mean, because you never eat. And I've watched it and all and I mean, I mean –"

Becca froze. She didn't know what to say. Was Sarah serious?

"What do you know about that?" she retorted. Sarah knew _nothing _about that. _No one_ knew anything about it. Why would anyone? Becca didn't share those things, it was a part of her past.

Sarah sighed, uncomfortable.

"I'm sorry I'm justsoworried." She paused. "Please just eat it."

"Why?" Becca demanded again. _Why the fuck would I eat this apple? Why would I do it, just because you told me to?_

"Because I-I'm sick of watching you starving every day. I'm… frankly I'm scared shitless. And-and worried as well," she explained, and Becca's eyes widened in a perplexed action. She was unprepared for the attack of her eating habits. "Sorry, Bex, it's just, I-I-I…"

Sarah couldn't tell her what to do, she was an independent person, she had decided on her own that she wanted to loose weight. Restrained, she observed first the apple, then Sarah.

"You have nothing to do with that," she argued.

Sarah bit her lip.

"I have Becca. I'm you're friend. I'm worried. I care about you."

_The last one surely doesn't show. _

Becca stubbornly refused to answer, ignoring the apple in front of her. It was repulsing. At least this time of day. Apples…

Sarah waited a little, as if she was expecting an answer. When she realized this wasn't going to happen, she showed she wasn't done with the topic.

"Please, eat it."

Becca was on the verge of dying from being uncomfortable. The fact that Sarah had paid attention to her behavior made her puzzled, since she had suspected that she was donning a cloak of invisibility, despite that Sarah sometimes noticed her.

The fact that she had _noticed _something about Becca made her a little warm from feeling needed, but at the same time made her a little upset. She didn't want anyone to put his or her nose where it didn't belong – in her business. Lunch was a faraway memory for her. It would always be, as long as she looked like she did. She didn't need to –

"Becca, please. You have to eat, you don't get it, it won't get better if you _stop _eating. I promise, be… because I know that, and I mean, it's like…" Pause. "You have to eat _right _and exercise, okay? If you like we can…we can go out jogging together if you want." She paused. "Please, you don't get it. It sucks to just watch you getting all of the side-effects without being able to do anything."

_We can go jogging together… __Yeah. Sure. Right. You freakin' wish. When exactly was the last time we met outside of school? Besides, side-effects? What fuckin' side-effects? I don't have side-effects, I never have._

Harper was literally _staring _at Sarah, her eyes full of the same wondering look as if Sarah were speaking to a little ant.

"What the fuck do you mean?"

Sarah briefly looked up at the ceiling, closing her eyes tight, before answering.

"Becca, I think you know what I mean."

"Are you jealous that I know how to loose weight and you don't?"

Sarah's eyes widened. Becca watched as her words sunk in.

"No."

Pause.

"Becca don't you get I don't want you to turn into…"

"Into?"

Sarah closed her eyes.

"Turn into what?"

As Becca saw how tortured Sarah was, how uncomfortable the situation was also for her, it overshadowed her own awkwardness. The tiny bit of sympathy that was still inside of her grew more prominent than her selfish refusal to not eat, and she painfully accepted the apple in front of her.

"_Fine_," Becca sourly accepted, carefully touching the apple in front of her, staring down at the table. From the corner of her eye she spotted the faint smile of relief on Sarah's lips, while Harper was staring at the two of them as though they had turned into two talking flamingos.

She tried to see through the fact that she was about to eat lunch, even though the thought made her nauseous and anxious.

Under the gazes of the two of them, she slowly, obviously reluctantly, sank her teeth into the apple. It was sour… and sweet… Unfamiliar, but at the same time painfully recognizable.

"Thanks, Bex," Sarah said quietly.

_Fruit, fruit, fruit. Got that? _Fruit. _Healthy, you can eat it, it's alright, okay? You eat it every night._

There was a voice, on the surface of her mind, which protested wildly, and went insane the minute she started chewing. She persisted though, focusing on the smile spread across Sarah's face and the other voice trying to convince her that what she was doing wasn't so bad. Maybe it was the opposite, maybe now she would get closer to Sarah again.

_Spit it out! You can't eat it! You can't, you'll gain weight, you'll get _fat_. F.A.T. Do you really want that? Do you really want to look like the ones around you, buried in their own fat? Rebecca Newton, what the _fuck _do you think you are doing?_

She managed to take another bite under the gazes of Sarah and Harper, maybe as if to prove to them she _was _able to eat. To put it mildly, they looked… surprised. In a strange way, it made Becca a little happy under the thick coat of worry. They were apparently not indifferent to her behavior; they _would _notice if she would shave her head, or break a leg.

As she sat there, pretending to enjoy her apple eating, but closing her eyes in regret for every time she swallowed, she saw the new family she knew had just arrived. The really handsome, perfect, faultless, family she in that moment envied more than anything.

The table they all sat at was located near the entrance, in the corner, and it made them almost separated from the rest of the room.

The Indian guy she had showed to class the day before wasn't there, but his family was. As she watched them from a distance, she couldn't help but to doubt if they really _were _a family. From her point of view, it looked as if they were all… couples. Even from a distance, she saw how they all sat in two's and two's, close to each other, almost linked together in a way that wasn't very sibling-ish

Ew.

Before, she had never really watched them; just mindlessly let her gaze swipe over them as though they were merely a pair of common students. Of course she would, because why would she pay attention to them when she was struggling to not get queasy at the thought of a room full of… food.

The more her gaze fixated towards them, the more she noticed their unusual and striking… _beauty_. While sitting there together, it was impossible not to notice how they stood out from the crowd of normal high school students. The angles in their faces were all indescribably perfect, nothing in their clothing out of place, not even a sign of common teenage-problems such as acne or greasy hair was visible at all. All of them were worryingly perfect, their posture, the low, deep and soft, voices she could distinguish, their grace as they occasionally shifted their position.

A pang of jealousy hit Becca in the chest. It was like they had been taken from her fantasy, deep down in her mind, been cut out perfectly, and put right there, so close to her. Obviously because then she would feel even less valuable than she had before.

All of them were shockingly pale, a pill white skin radiating from them clearly. She couldn't believe how the dark, Indian, guy she had met just the other day could even be _related _to them. He probably wasn't. They were so different, it was impossible not to notice how his dark skin was so out of place among their white. He was without a doubt adopted, or their parents had gotten together after both of their divorces.

She was surprised her eyes didn't fall out of their sockets as she continued to callously stare. No one of them resembled anything she had ever seen before. Unnaturally perfect, as if they had just stepped out from a fashion magazine, all of them styled, thoroughly photo-shopped, for a photo shoot.

There were six of them; six gorgeous models were at that table, barely touching their food. A little part of her mind suspected that maybe they were just like herself. But it didn't seem reasonable for them to worry about the same things as her, they already were perfect, while Becca was desperately stumbling up the trail that probably never would lead to what she saw as perfection.

Three boys, one just as full of muscle as the Indian guy, one indifferent blond who seemed painfully aware of everything around him, and another with a huge curtain of reddish brown hair and a scowl spread across his face. Then there were the girls, the pretty, pretty girls that Becca instantly envied. A gorgeous blonde, without a doubt the most beautiful girl Becca had ever seen, a short, thin, girl who seemed to stare at something too far away for the others to see and one who was, in vain, trying to comfort the copper-haired boy.

Their gazes though, it was when Becca noticed those gazes that she realized that their physically perfect outsides maybe didn't resemble at all to their insides. All of their facial expressions were clouded by a gray, for her, invisible fog. Even though she couldn't look directly at it, she noticed how it was so prominently there, in all of their faces. They were depressed and tortured, and Becca's vanity asked her how they could look so devastated, with looks quite a few people would kill to possess.

"Becca?"

A voice prevented her from further studying the new family. She blinked a few times. _Fuck. _She had lost herself in her own mind again. Plain awesome.

"Yes," she answered, staring down at her apple, noticing she had eaten half of it, and tried to ignore the mad person inside of her head who was screaming and kicking, cursing her for giving into Sarah's pleas. She closed her eyes painfully slow. _You can do this. Fucking pull yourself together. _

"Sorry, you just seemed so distant," Sarah said.

_Yeah? You don't say?_

She carefully, trying not to draw attention to herself, put the apple down back on the table again. She was done with it. To hell with fucking fruit when she looked like a mountain of fat.

"Do you guys know anything about the new family?" She had changed the topic on purpose. Maybe that would help them forget her trance, and she was curious about the new students. "Are they all together, or what? Isn't that incest?" The sight of them burned in her memory.

"I think they're all adopted," Harper replied, trying to sound indifferent as she studied her painted nails.

"Wow, someone's done their research," Sarah joked with a little laugh.

"All of them?"

"Yeah, well the two blond ones are real cousins I think… At least they share the same last name."

"Isn't their last name Cullen?"

"Yeah, but they're called Hale."

"So they are together?" Becca wondered.

"It most certainly looks like it," Harper answered with obvious jealousy in her voice. She stretched her neck to get a look at the subject of their conversation. "God, they're all over each other!"

"Um, they are _not_," Sarah interrupted. "They're just… holding hands…"

"So not what I saw this morning," Harper defended herself with.

"So you mean someone's adopted _six _kids?" Becca persisted, interrupted Harper's self-centered worries and criticism.

"Seven," Sarah corrected.

"You forgot my to-be boyfriend," Harper added.

Becca rolled her eyes. Her stomach knotted at the thought of Harper crushing on him.

"It's this new super-hot doctor in town and his wife. I think they adopted them when they were like, ten. So the doctor's only in his thirties or something…"

"How do you know that?"

"Um, Mom works at the hospital?" Harper posed it as a question, her tone, under a well-played role, full of hostility.

"Oh, right, sorry."

"Anyway, why you wonderin'?" Harper asked.

"Just…" _so jealous I could die_ "curious."

"I bet their story's all over the school by now. Rumor has it when people like _these _come to freakin' Forks!"

"I guess," Sarah agreed, gazing at the apple Becca had put on the table.

_Please, please, please, please, please, please don't comment on it. Please, please, please, please, please…_

"Um, are you done with the… apple?"

Crap.

Sarah's voice was the worst torture in the world, because it sounded so innocent and weak, fragile like a little bird, as though she was always intimidated. It was so difficult to tell her where to go for having asked about the apple when she asked it like that, so shyly. Becca closed her eyes.

"I guess not." She braced herself and bravely took another, big, bite and chewed with exaggerated actions. "Yum," she said, hunching her shoulders. Sarah saw through her lies, but didn't mention anything.

When they were finished, Becca felt how her otherwise empty stomach was flipping and blending back and forth, never ceasing. She closed her eyes, trying to ignore that voice in her head that was traumatizing the occasion.

She brought out a gum from her bag, focusing on the mint in her mouth instead of the actions of her stomach.

Why had she eaten? Why had she let herself being persuaded by Sarah? What, did she suddenly no longer have her own _will_? She could decide for herself, she had done it long enough that she had gotten used to it now.

She tried to penetrate Sarah with strong, fantasy, eye laser as she walked in front of Becca. Unfortunately, it did nothing to the girl in front of her. Furious at Sarah, and deep down even more furious at herself, she spun around and ran towards the toilets.

Samantha from her Gym class was the only one there, washing her hands, and quietly said hello as Becca ignored her and slammed the door to the little booth shut. As soon as Samantha's steps faded and a door closed, she started crying.

_Why, why, _why_?_

Why her? Why would things like this always happen to her?

One, now her eyes would be ruined by her running mascara. Two, it would take her a gazillion years to get over the fact that she had eaten _lunch_. That stupid, mean, voice in her head would never disappear. Three, she would have to ditch, even though she had promised her mom.

With tears in her eyes, she threw her backpack angrily on the floor, dried her tear-stained hands off on her pants, and without thinking, bent forward and stuck her fingers down her throat. The reflex overwhelmed her and she hunched forward, grabbing the wall with her left hand.

There was barely anything to throw up. Her tears hit the surface of the toilet water as she panted for air, closing her eyes.

_Fuck everything._

As she stepped out, stumbling, out of the restrooms, she noticed the Indian guy a distance away from her. He was eyeing her, studying her, in a way that made her intimidated. It was as if he knew. She quickly averted her gaze away from him, returning to her locker. As she walked away, she felt his gaze burning in her back.

The weekend was a relief so overwhelming for Becca, she threw herself on her bed the minute she stepped over the threshold, coming officially home. When her last class had ended, she had run to her car, practically ignoring necessary goodbyes to the ones who pretended to care about her. She couldn't remember the last time she had been in school for _two entire days_. Ever since that difficult time, it had been so hard to live like normal.

Now, two days of complete freedom were in front of her. Two lonely days full of whale-watching, chain-smoking her favorite brand of cigarettes – because she had found some forgotten money in a desk-drawer – and movies.

Becca avoided every type of movies, apart from one genre. One type of movies she couldn't get enough of. She inhaled them, she melted them into her heart, she memorized them to never forget, she watched them, leaving her brain in a tin with formaldehyde next to her, and forgot about everything else. Everything that had ever tortured her soul.

After having being home a few minutes, soaking in the liberty of the weekend, she took a ten-dollar bill out of the can in the kitchen her mom put food-money in, and left the house, smelling the scent of freedom in the air as she opened the door to her car. After a few minutes drive, she parked outside a supermarket. One that provided rental movies. Her heart flipped in her chest as she walked inside, not bothering the fact that she accidentally walked into a huge pool of water in front of the automatic doors.

The selection was limited, but after a few minutes of indecisiveness, she chose a quite new movie, with one of her favorite actresses starring.

The only movies Becca watched were romantic comedies. Everything else bored her, or brought up unusually painful memories. In those movies, there were no eating disorders, there was no illegal smoking, there were no depressive thoughts, there were no loneliness, no throwing up… Just plain happiness from beginning to start. Cheesy romance problems, laughter witnessing of no other types of thoughts, sucky acting, and most importantly, a happily ever after.

It was only Becca's mother who knew how much she liked watching romantic comedies, because her mother was the one who always sat faithfully next to her, laughing with her at the right parts, and rolling her eyes at the corniness of some movies. During those ninety minutes, the distance Becca had taken from her mother disappeared, and the two of them became a happy family again, joy sparkling between them.

They had a tradition together, Ginger and Becca. Every Friday, sometimes Saturdays, they rented movies, comedies, and watched them together with a bowl of popcorn – that Becca never ate from – and a blissful atmosphere. Sometimes, it was even better than First Beach, only Becca never let herself admit this.

Her mother wasn't home when she came home again, so Becca took a quick look at the home works. Nothing really important, not that she cared anyway, so she let them lie, untouched, in her backpack. She could always lie to her mom about having made them.

Becca managed to choke down some spicy thai food takeaway her mom had brought home after work, and threw the last eighty per cent in the trash. She felt bad for having forced down so much, when she had had an apple for lunch. She wouldn't have breakfast tomorrow.

"Which movie did you rent?" her mom wondered as they did the dishes together. Becca drying, her mom dishing.

"A pretty new one, about a weird couple. And a guy who gets flown to Bangkok drunk for his bachelor party."

Her mom laughed an effortless, spontaneous laugh that made Becca's lips break into a small smile. Suddenly her mind was emptied of everything else as she spent the evening with her mother, feeling just as close to her as she once had been. Magic.

Ginger let her sleep in the next morning, leaving her in peace as she woke up to reality at 11.30. Her mom had to leave around one; she was working this weekend, as a waitress on one of the few restaurants Forks possessed, an overpriced steakhouse.

After skipping breakfast, she decided to drive to First Beach. It wasn't raining, even though gray clouds threatened above, so she decided to push fate and wear the new gladiator sandals she had recently bought for some saved money. They were summer shoes, but Becca wanted to wear them anyway. It was Forks, it wouldn't matter if she wore them in March or June, the weather would never be optimal for them. Maybe she would freeze her toes off, but then she would have to. Looking good was something Becca was still caring about, she let the world know she wasn't giving up. Yet.

After having arrived, she sat down on her usual spot – about a hundred yards from where she had parked her car, close to the beach – and lit a cigarette, trying to get her mind to think nothing and ignore her stomach's stubborn growls. She didn't need food. Not now, maybe later when she was thin enough, but not now. It was too soon.

Becca was almost always alone there, at First Beach. There were seldom any intruders, if one didn't count with the occasional old man going for a walk, or maybe a few ten year-olds playing. So when she noticed a familiar, tall figure, a distance away from her, walking along the beach – barefoot – she became puzzled. What was _he _doing here?

It was the Indian-guy from school, walking with his hands in his pockets and head bent down, gazing at the beige sand. A wave brushed over his feet, the cold water surrounding them, without him even seeming to notice. Even though the water was cold as hell.

She quickly averted her gaze towards the ground again, focusing on her cigarette, but it was too late. She noticed how he was staring back at him, suddenly ceasing his walk. She looked up, to see if he had turned around, but he hadn't. His eyes were still focused on her, and she bravely stared back at him, still not acknowledging his presence. He looked away first, and continued his walk along the beach, towards _her_.

She froze. _What just happened?_

Becca really didn't want to handle him now. Not here, on her free place, doing one of the few things she enjoyed. This was supposed to be _her _place. No one from school had never come here and seen here. No one, not even Sarah and Harper, knew about her secret love for First Beach. And there muscle-boy was, intruding her in her own private bubble where she could sink into that weird trance without anyone thinking she was weird. This place was supposed to be _hers_, no other strangers walking in on her territory. Even though it was a public place.

Her anxiousness increased as he got closer. She panicked, and quickly stumbled back towards her car, trying not to look back at him. Even though none of them had said anything, she didn't want to be at First Beach with him so close. It was awkward, and uncomfortable. And she was scared. Scared that he would find out about her secret place.

As she drove home, she realized her weekend was officially ruined. And that she would have to go to school that Monday with two lousy free days in her backpack.

...

There were no free parking spaces left. _None_. Every single spot in front of the school was occupied. Occupied, as in that there was a hell lot of lucky bastards inside of that school building who didn't have to worry about finding a parking place.

Why did it matter to him anyway? He didn't care about school, right? Nothing mattered to him anymore.

But he would disappoint them if he showed visibly that he didn't care about anything. They had moved back to help him get back into the personality he had once had. They only wanted him happy… It really showed that they had no idea what he was going through.

Why did everyone in this school suddenly have to have a car? Maybe it was because he was later than usual; he didn't want to arrive simultaneously as the rest of them. He didn't like riding to school with them, it was like pretending he was a part of them. He wasn't. Not even close. Jacob knew everyone had already noticed it.

As he frantically drove around, he saw one spot left, a disgusting, littered, spot, but a spot all the same. Relieved, he drove towards it; slowly and now assured he wouldn't have to park outside the school area.

It was the first time in years he got angry as he, from the corner of his eyes, spotted a blue, ridiculously, small car accelerating towards _his _recently found parking spot, taking it in a clumsy maneuvering.

Suddenly furious, for no particular reason, he watched as the driver got out of her car, locking it while ignoring Jacob. He turned off the engine.

"Hey!" he yelled, feeling the rage he had kept locked up inside for so many years. "Hey!" he tried again. "You! Over there!"

She slowly turned around, and he ran angrily towards her.

"What the fuck are you doing? That was my place! _My place!_ Are you fucking blind or something? Didn't you see I was on my way there!"

It was the same girl he had seen on First Beach two days ago. The same girl who had showed him to class on his first day, and the same girl he had watched stumbling out of the restrooms that past Friday.

She looked indifferent as he yelled at her for not seeing him. She didn't bother as the wind grabbed her brown curls and got in her face. Her eyes just scanned him, as if wondering what he was doing. It irritated the shit out of him.

"First period's soon, I _wanted_ that place. Who are you to just come taking it like that? Now I have to park outside of school, that's a hell of a walk, and I don't get why you would take that place from me."

He continued. She stared at him.

The thing that then struck him was her clothing. She was human, he knew it, but yet she dressed like a werewolf, as if her body temperature made her safe from the threatening cold. She was wearing sandals, with only a thin blue hoodie with rainbows to protect her from the cold. Rainbows? Really?

She looked so fragile, thin as a stick. Her face was hollowed, weak, and it scared him. He stopped talking instantly as he realized exactly what her visit to the toilets three days ago had been about. This was not the average sophomore. He shut up instantly.

They were starting any minute, but she didn't seem to be in a hurry at all. She adjusted the straps from her backpack on her shoulder, and continued to stare at him as he grew silent. Suddenly he knew much, much more about her than he had first thought. The anger disappeared, and he became the same unresponsive Jacob he had evolved into during the past years.

"Are you done?" she wondered. Her eyes were emptied of life, not even a feeble spark of will was hiding in her frightening depths, so intense as he watched her.

"Look, I'll just find another place," he said slowly.

She nodded, and disappeared into the school building. He stared after her, and double-parked the rabbit in the way of a ridiculously nice car. He didn't care. And frankly, he wanted to make life a little harder for the person with that car. Giving him a sneak peak of the life Jacob had.

Since he was in her Government class, she met him again that day.

The Indian-guy had really freaked her out that morning. Not that she had let it show, but he had truly intimidated her. She wouldn't have expected it at all from him; she had been foolish enough to believe that he was calm, indifferent. Perhaps a little similar to her. But she had been very wrong, obviously.

She liked to believe she hadn't done anything wrong. _She _parked there every morning; she was the only one who had the guts. Maybe it didn't give her the right to steal the spot from anyone else, but… But… goddammit why couldn't she just stop thinking about it?

What did it really matter? _He _seemed to care about school just as little as she. Why would something set him off like that? The expression she had gotten from him that day was that if he could decide, he probably wouldn't be in a high school full of stupid teenagers. On top of it, he had been driving slowly towards the spot, as if he wasn't even driving in that direction. But of course he had, she wasn't stupid, just looking for excuses.

But then, he had calmed just like that, and her insides had done a little jump in surprise. His voice had turned from upset to softer… not gentle though, maybe almost a little tired…

It had been when he looked at her like that, really deeply, even though in an angry state, how she had noticed how dark and deep his eyes really were. Dark, dark, brown eyes, almost black, that had so thoroughly eyed her. The thought almost gave her goose bumps. She had never met anyone with the same intense gaze as him; his eyes had almost shocked her.

She arrived earlier than usual to the class, leaving Harper and Sarah in the library behind, to see if he was there. She wanted to apologize, maybe talk a little to see how much he knew about… about the entire bathroom-scenery before the weekend.

The fact that he had looked at her like that, so suspicious, as she stumbled away made her anxious. He didn't want him to know, when she hadn't told anyone else. If he would mention it, she would ask him to keep quiet. The last thing she wanted was attention. She wanted to be left alone; she was old enough to make her own decisions. Everyone should let her mind her own business, Becca never asked for anyone's advice.

He was in the classroom when she came, her pulse quickened.

He was sitting alone, and didn't move an inch as she sat down next to him. Headphones were plugged into his ears, and he was staring emptily in front of him, ignoring Becca. Had he even seen her? If he hadn't, it was time now.

"Hi," she said, trying to gain his attention by opening her book loudly. Three pairs of eyes met her as she did it, his, and two guys in his class who had come early.

She spotted a tiny hint of surprise in his face, but it all drained away after the brief of a second.

"Hi." He didn't remove the headphones. It sort of bugged her.

"Did we have home work?" she started, sharpening the pencil she knew she would have no use for. She didn't get why she was acting like someone she wasn't.

"Dunno." If they had, it was obvious he had done as little of it as she had.

She nodded. _How responsive… _Then she cut the crap.

"I'm… sorry about this morning." She knew her voice indicated that she wasn't actually sorry. But maybe he wouldn't notice the difference.

"It's okay."

She was quiet.

"I guess I made a real big deal out of it," he said after a while.

_Did he just say a sentence consisting of more than three words?_

She smirked a little while looking down at her books. He had spoken to her! She didn't really know why that had put her in a less foul mood than usual.

He was looking at her now, she noticed as she averted her gaze from the table towards him.

"What's your name?" she asked.

"Jacob Black."

_Jacob…_

"I'm Becca Newton, I mean Rebecca."

She held out her hand for him to shake it, since he hadn't. He took it, and his fingers were warm. Really warm, and the warmth spread throughout her body for the briefest second while their fingers were still entwined. Her hand tingled as it left his grip. It really _tingled_.


	5. Four

**Disclaimer: Twilight belong to Stephenie Meyer. I just love to write with her characters. No copyright infringement intended. **

**Four**

**Forks, America**

**March 23****rd**** 2089**

Life in Forks – history repeating itself.

Many, many years ago, there was an ancient boy and a new girl, along with a tale of forbidden love. This time around, it is the boy who is new and heartbroken, and the girl a long lost wreck.

Two broken souls, so far ignorant to the impending impact they will have on each other's lives.

Life isn't like the prints on Rebecca's t-shirts – unicorns and rainbows. _This _is reality.

The emo-bitch's name was Rebecca. Rebecca Newton. Her last name echoed familiarly inside his head, he just couldn't remember where he had heard it before. Maybe the numbness had started to affect his memory as well.

She entered his mind a little more often than he would have preferred – she was disturbing his grieving. But her hollowed cheeks wouldn't leave him alone. That fact irritated him.

She just seemed broken, in a way beyond description. Her eyes, icy and blinding like diamond snow, were despite their brilliancy lacking light that he could have sworn had once been there.

Still, all of the thoughts he had about her were only faint, vague, flicks of things separating the pattern his mind had started to form. Get up in the morning. Don't forget to blink. Eat. Go to bed.

But it was still enough to annoy him.

When he sat down next to her again the following day, he realized those short flicks of breaking his habit of having an empty mind must have had affected him. It shocked him.

But he had, oddly enough, wanted to sit next to her again.

It was the first time he had felt something that hadn't been an unbearably, chest-sucking, pain or indescribable anger – since Nessie had left. It scared him in a way, as if it was a sign that he was about to forget about her. He didn't want to forget. _How _could he _want_ to forget?

He missed Nessie. He missed her so much. Every time he played the giggle mixed with a snort she always did in his head, it made him drop whatever else was in his unimportant, empty mind. He missed the sight of her twirling a lock of hair around her finger; he missed feeling her intense tree bark brown gaze on him.

Jacob couldn't believe how much he had searched for her. How much he had searched in vain, how she was forever gone.

The thought of this made him unplug his headphones as he sat down next to Becca, and lean his head in his hands, hoping she hadn't noticed him.

But no, luck wasn't with him.

He suddenly regretted it all. What was he trying to accomplish?

"You okay?" Rebecca wondered slowly. He could feel her gaze on him.

"Sure, sure," he mumbled.

Silence. Why did he want to sit next to _her_? Why would he want to sit next to _anyone_? Renesmee was still a reminder in every face he saw. It wasn't as if she was going to disappear from his mind anytime soon. Probably not even the day where he would take his last breath.

"Did we have homework?"

He knew she was just asking to break the awkward silence. She wasn't lying, of course – he had realized she was one of those who weren't comfortable in school – but he was sure that _she_ knew, just as much as him, that he had absolutely no idea if they were supposed to have had worked at home.

"No idea," he replied, scratching his neck. "I haven't done anything."

"Me either," she confessed. He wasn't surprised.

"I didn't take you for the study-type."

"That's because I'm not."

"Neither am I."

She smiled weakly. "I sorta figured that out as well."

The tiny conversation that had been uttered, it was the longest one Jacob had had – apart from the Cullens – since Nessie had left. Yet, the thought wouldn't enter his mind and reveal itself until the following day. It wouldn't, because talking suddenly felt very natural.

She paused. "I don't really like reading. I think we read too much in school," she added quietly, as if confessing an embarrassing secret.

"I don't like reading either," Jacob agreed, to his surprise. He didn't read anymore, not even the paper. Because every time his eyes would scan across a page full of words, he would always find something that would remind him of Renesmee. Since long, he had begun to avoid that.

"I-I like math," Becca mumbled, confused as to why she was suddenly telling the guy who had yelled at her furiously in the parking lot the day before about her favorite subject. She nervously chewed on the inside of her lip afterwards, afraid that she might have said too much.

"Nah," he disagreed. "I don't. I'm not really too fond of anything that involves school."

Becca leaned back in her chair. "Yeah, I guess you're right. High school's a bitch."

"Yep."

In a weird way, they ended up leaving the classroom an hour later, side by side. He radiated an unusual warmth, like fire, that she hadn't experienced before. It almost made her shiver.

It was so natural for them to continue next to each other, to pick up trays together, for Becca to try to mask her condition by taking a tiny lunch, just because she knew that she would sit next to Jacob today. She wasn't ready just yet to reveal her true self to him.

Although what she didn't know, was that he'd easily figure that out himself.

The childish part of her personality secretly wondered if Harper would be jealous as they sat down together.

While talking to Becca, Jacob, for the teeniest tiniest moments, forgot his numbness, his scars, and his irrevocable state. One time, he actually smiled a little as she told him about how she had once thought that saying "makeup" was cussing.

Though at the sight of her lunch, he frowned. Suddenly, he knew her even better.

Unaware of what was going on hundred feet away, he listened to Rebecca.

"Esme's birthday's coming up," Rosalie stated, sitting at a table with untouched trays of food. She was met with silence. Alice stubbornly folded her arms across her chest, and counted the seconds on her wristwatch. "Oh, come on, you guys," Rosalie finally said after ten seconds of silence.

"If this is about you trying to convince me to throw her a party," Alice started sourly. "Then forget it." Her eyes were pitch black, her irises becoming one with her pupils. It looked as though she had painted dark eye shadow under her eyes – the result of not hunting in too long.

Alice knew that she needed to hunt, and that it was a reason to her grumpiness. The pulsating veins filled with blood belonging to her classmates were an inevitable distraction. Just a thin, thin layer of skin covering that liquid she craved so badly…

No humans. Animals. No humans.

"No, it's not about that," Rosalie assured Alice, watching her run her fingers through her spiky hair, making it edgier. "Maybe we should divide it. Alice, do you want to buy the present?"

"No."

Rosalie frowned. "O-kay," she said, making a clear distinction between the syllables.

"I think Edward should buy her a present," Alice snarled.

"Al, come on," Emmett requested. "Don't."

"What?" Alice demanded, holding her hands in the air in a surrendering gesture. "In case you haven't noticed, I'm the selfish Rosalie-bitch now," she explained. Then continued with a scowl, "And apparently she's become the freaky party-person."

There was a moment of silence. Not even Jasper uttered a word, perhaps too weighed down by the others' distinct feelings.

"Don't be like that, Alice," Rosalie begged.

"Where's Jacob, anyway?" Alice muttered, ignoring Rosalie. "He's not here."

"He's eating with a girl," Bella suddenly replied. Attempts of trying to sound casual were traceable in her voice; her voice contained a hidden excitement.

"_What?_" Alice instantly averted her gaze towards the rest of the people in the cafeteria. "You're kidding, right? Where?" She spotted him in the split of a second later. "Oh my god." Her lips formed a tiny 'o'. She turned around to the others again. "Oh my god. Is that Jacob Black, with a _human_?"

Bella nodded. "Yes, that's Jacob with a girl!" Her lips formed into something that could be interpreted as a smile.

Alice leaned back in her chair. "I can't believe it. Is he seriously doing something that doesn't involve… not doing anything…"

"I know," Bella agreed, astonished. "It's – "

"It's… a miracle," Alice filled in, slowly nodding, turning towards where Jacob sat with Rebecca. "What's her name?" Her voice had suddenly caught an entirely new tone.

"Rebecca," Edward said lowly, masking his worries with a faked pitch. "Newton."

"Is that – " Bella didn't have time to finish her question. Even though Edward couldn't read her mind, he knew what she was asking anyway.

"Yes, it is. And her great grandmother is actually Jessica."

"Jess?" Bella whispered, drowning in memories. She still hadn't seen her old friends since her high school graduation, while still being human. It was more than eighty years ago.

Edward nodded, scowling. He had gotten a good look of the dark mind of Rebecca Newton. He wondered if Jacob was aware of what he was facing. His thoughts hadn't revealed any possible explanation to why he would spend his lunch with a girl – especially a girl like Rebecca.

He knew it couldn't be out of pity – Jacob had had enough of pity – there had to be another reason to why he would step out of his thick bubble of isolation.

"She's pretty," Alice whispered. "Her voice is pretty." She was suddenly fixating her gaze on an object too far away to be seen by the others. "Her future's black tomorrow."

Bella's mouth fell open. "No."

Alice nodded. "Yes."

Alice's ability of seeing the future was futile on werewolves, since they were a species she had never been. Every future involving Jacob, or any werewolf, instantly became dark when she tried to make it out.

If Rebecca's future was black, it meant Jacob was in it.

Since Jacob had been living with them for so long, she was no longer able to use her ability as much as she once had been, since Jacob was now a part of their family. It diminished her, and gave her occasional headaches, thus playing a part in her personality-change.

Alice spent another split of a second observing them. From the corner of her eye, Emmett was spotted listening intently.

"Don't eavesdrop, Em!" Bella hissed from the other side of the table.

He was instantly back in their conversation. "Fine."

"Don't mention this to him when we get home," Bella decided. "I don't think he wants to talk about it."

Alice's gaze darkened. "_What?_ But-but I thought – "

"Al, don't," Em warned.

She folded her arms across her chest in surrender, and impatiently started bobbing her foot up and down in a very human gesture.

Jasper touched her cheek for a moment, comforting her. He then said something too quickly and too low for any human to make out to her. Her gaze softened the tiniest.

When Jacob got home, the events of the past day suddenly started ringing in his ears. How he had, against all odds, broken the monotonous pattern he had lived in for so long vehemently struck him.

He had eaten lunch with a human.

He had _talked _to another person.

He knew that his absence among his family at lunch was no secret. He knew that as Bella, like always, tried to make conversation with him about the new principal, she was completely aware that he had met a girl that apparently had been interesting enough not to ignore.

The thing was, she wasn't really interesting. There was nothing in particular that pulled him in when she talked. The reality around him didn't fade as she made awkward hand gestures. She was different, but not in a good way. Just by watching her, he had discerned enough information to come to the conclusions that Rebecca Newton was a wreck.

Rebecca Newton didn't eat.

Rebecca Newton didn't study.

Rebecca Newton's self-esteem was probably one of the lowest at Forks High School.

Rebecca Newton inexplicably spent a little too much time in the restrooms every lunch.

Maybe he had talked to her out of pity. Maybe he had had lunch with her, because otherwise she would have had to sit alone. Maybe he had done a good deed by sitting next to her.

Yet, he felt guilty. Guilty, because it felt as if he had betrayed Renesmee. As if when she had left that day in March, he had given a promise that he wouldn't let anyone in again.

It didn't make sense. He knew that she hadn't isolated herself to the extent he had after she had left – he knew her, even the bad sides. She was selfish enough to not do that.

He wondered what she was doing right then, in the same moment.

A pang of jealousy pinched him as he thought of the people Renesmee were with, the people who had taken his place at her side.

It was always like this. Every day, every hour, every minute, he tried to concentrate on something that didn't involve missing her until he vomited. But it didn't work. Every thought that crossed his mind would, sooner or later, only lead to something involving Renesmee. He hadn't, and would never, accept her absence. No matter how many years would pass, he would always desperately cling to his past with her, and always frantically let her take hold of his mind.

Nessie had these amazing curls in her hair, curls that would never lose their original form. They made her face look rounder; they made her even prettier than she already was. He missed running his fingers through her hair. He missed seeing her curls bounce as she walked.

A tiny part of him inside, a part that had given up, knew that those curls were nothing but a memory, a memory that burned like fire on his skin whenever he thought of it. That part of him realized it would never exist for real again.

If Jacob hadn't been emptied of feelings, he would have felt tears burn behind his eyelids as he got painfully close to getting a seizure from missing Nessie and her beautiful curls.

Why was he incapable of making new friends? Why couldn't he let himself go back to normal again?

Why? Well, simply because he hadn't let her go. To make this clearer, he didn't _want _to let her go. He didn't want to give up hope that his missing part would never return. And yet, there was a little piece of him, deep, deep, that knew she was out of reach, but he continued to push it away. Jacob continued to cling to the idea that maybe there was still a life left for him. Somewhere. Sometime.

Imprinting was so much more than a word. A word didn't mean anything, a word didn't matter the slightest.

Imprinting. It was so easy to say. It was so easy to just callously spit it out, not realizing the full meaning behind the insensitively used words.

If Nessie knew, if she had known the feelings that were impossible to mark in words that came with imprinting, she wouldn't have left him.

At least that was what he was hoping for. Hoping so deeply and sincerely, it one day came true. At least in _his _head.

He hadn't asked for any of this, he hadn't asked to be treated like shit; he hadn't asked to be cruelly abandoned out of selfishness.

Had there been something wrong with how he had behaved? Hadn't he given her enough space? Hadn't he been observant enough to notice her unhappiness in time?

What would have happened, if he had convinced her not to leave? How would his life look now? Would he have moved back to Forks? Would he have made a new acquaintance in the very broken girl he had yelled at for taking his parking space? Probably not. He would be too busy concentrating his full attention on Renesmee.

He blinked a few times where he sat in front of a TV that no one was focusing on. Even though his heart was aching for the girl he loved, he couldn't bring himself to express his emotions on the outside. It didn't work.

Jacob wondered if this was his doom, if his life would end like this. Lonely as hell, his only company a brand new widescreen TV that in no way would nor could change his state.

Then, he decided that maybe he wouldn't push the emo-bitch away.

Dinnertime at the Newton's – thirty minutes of torture for some, while a nice break from boring work for others.

"Mom," Becca said slowly, moving her untouched food around on the plate with her fork. Her fingers itched to throw it in the sink, and go out for a long brisk walk. A walk to burn fat… "I've been thinking about becoming a vegetarian,"

Her mom took a sip from the glass of water in front of her. "Really?" she remarked, not sounding as interested as Becca had feared she would be.

"Yeah." She averted her gaze down to her lap, so that her mom wouldn't see through her, and notice the real reason to why she would from now on replace meat with salad.

At least she didn't slit her wrists. At least she didn't self inflict pain.

Or did she?

"Why's that?"

She was lying to her mother.

"Um – " _lie, lie, lie! _"I've been thinking of all the, uh, animals, you know. I don't think that they're… being treated right. Because I saw this thing on the news – " her speech picked up fluency "about pigs not being treated right, and that the cows are slaughtered when they're too young…"

"That doesn't really sound like you, Bex," her mom remarked, a little smile across her lips.

Becca's pulse picked up pace in her chest. She was suddenly nervous. Guilt was slowly starting to pulse through her veins, spreading like poison with every heartbeat. It obscured her vision the tiniest, but she did her best to persevere.

"I know, but…"

"I thought you liked meat?"

_I don't like food in general… _

"I don't, actually," Becca clarified.

Her mom frowned. "Really?

Becca nodded. "Yep."

There was a moment of silence. "Well, if it's what you want…" She paused. "Though I don't think I'll also start to eat vegetarian," she added.

Becca cracked a tiny smile, thinking that it hadn't been as bad as she thought it would be. "No, it's fine. I'll just skip the meat and have what else is for dinner."

"I can start googling up some vegetarian recipes."

"No," Becca objected quickly. "I'll just stick with what you also eat."

Her mom raised one eyebrow. Becca lowered her gaze.

The becoming vegetarian was just an excuse. An excuse so that she could get away with eating less than the average person. When she was thin and pretty again, she could start having meat for dinner again… if she felt like it. What damage could it do to avoid meat? She didn't need the extra fat. There was protein in other stuff…

"You sure about that?" Suspicion was dripping from her words. Suddenly, the air was thick around them.

"Yes."

Becca counted to six before another word was uttered.

"Well, maybe we have to eat a little vegetarian, at least. You know, it's important to still eat protein. I'll do some researching for you," her mom offered. "To see what you have to add to your diet now."

Becca's heart sank in her chest. _We don't have to add anything… just remove… _She tried not to let it display across her face.

"Sure," she whispered, turning her gaze towards her almost untouched foods. "Beans. Hooray!"

"Are you planning on still eating fish?" Ginger asked.

"No," was the short, simple, answer she got. It disappointed her. She frowned, in her head trying to come up with a possible idea to change their current topic with. Rebecca's vegetarianism wasn't what was on her mind. What had been stuck in her brain during her entire shift at work was something else.

"How's school?" she asked, trying to mask her almost too obvious suspicion. Suspicion, that Rebecca didn't sense right away.

"What do you _think_? Same old, same old. Same boring teachers, same boring people in it, same sterile, impersonal, environment," Becca admitted, chugging down a bit of water. "Same fucking reading that you have to do for some fucking reason."

"Language, Bex." Ginger wiped her hands off on her apron, a sign of nervousness that revealed her following statement. "You _are _going to school, right?"

Becca ceased playing with the fork in her food. "What do you mean?" she demanded slowly, looking up to meet her mom's eyes, her blue eyes raging with the icy fires she knew were there.

Becca had inherited her eyes from her mother, and was met with the same intense gaze. "I was just wondering if you really _were _going to school."

"I am," Becca hissed. She couldn't believe this. She couldn't believe she had pulled herself together to make her mother happy by going to school, just so that she could get yelled at for doing something she wasn't doing. A cloud of rage was forming inside of her, and she impatiently started fingering with her plastic ring.

"Rebecca, just tell me, have you been going to school since we talked?" her mother asked seriously.

"What the fuck, mom?" Becca yelled, dropping the fork she had in her hand. "What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Are you saying you don't believe me?" Suddenly, her trouble was in controlling herself from flying across the table, grabbing her mother by the shirt and screaming in her face exactly how she had dragged her lazy ass to school _just _to please her.

Her mother's voice came out cautious. "Rebecca, you know as well as I that just because you said you've been to school, doesn't necessarily mean that you have."

Becca blinked, as if she didn't fully understand the message of her mom's words. "For your information, I _have _been going to school every day since you insisted on freakin' driving me to it and drop me off in front of exactly _everybody_. I have, I haven't ditched a single fucking class and I don't get how fucking hard it can be to get that inside of your head," she continued yelling.

"Rebecca – "

"Don't 'Rebecca' me! Because I have been going to school _only _because you wanted me to. That was the only reason. And I can't fucking believe you didn't believe me."

She was trying so hard, so hard to make her mother happy, and yet, it didn't seem to matter. She had ruined the last piece of trust her mom had ever held for her during these past months, and she was well aware of that it would be more than difficult to get it back. Becca knew her mother.

"Why are you like this?" she demanded. "I try so hard to make you happy by going to school, but all you make me wanna do is light it on fire!"

"Don't talk like that, Rebecca."

"I am sick of this! Don't you get it's not easy to try to act as if everything's okay when it's not? It's like someone's built a huge house on top of me, ever since Dad…" She didn't dare to utter the word died. She knew better, she knew how it would hurt her mom. If it hadn't been for that, she would have said it. She had given it time enough to sink in. "It's so fucking difficult, you know that? I haven't asked for this, I don't get why it always has to be _me_." She whispered the last six words.

"I only want the best for you! I want you to get an education, go to college, get a nice job, so you won't be stuck driving buses for the rest of your life, like me."

"Are you saying there's something wrong with that?" Becca pressed loudly.

"I am not saying there's something wrong with that, I just wish you better, okay? You're my daughter, and sometimes I feel that you don't understand that all I do is to try to make it better for you, okay? So why do you have to continue to push me away?

"Go to school, Rebecca. Take notes, study, _try _to not fail all subjects, okay? Because it will pay off."

Rage bubbled inside of her; she was a volcano, bursting with hot, burning, lava.

"Get the hell out of my life! You don't make my decisions! I am a vegetarian and I ditch school! There's nothing you can do than accept that! I do what I wanna do!"

With that, she rose from her chair, left the kitchen, and marched into the hallway with determined steps.

What did it take to just leave all of this behind? Everything was holding her down, she didn't want to continue like this. The little care she held for everything, the tiny fists frantically grabbing the fabric that kept her from falling, she knew her grip around it would loosen. She would fall and fall into an endless, perpetual, hole.

"I'm going out," she stated rudely, putting on her jogging shoes, not bothering to inform her mother of her planned walk.

Her mom appeared, arms folded across her chest, in the hallway, scowling. "Fine," she retorted childishly, "but don't for a minute think we're done talking."

"I have migraine," Becca growled before slamming the door shut, as if it was an excuse for her irritated behavior.

The first tear left her eye exactly four seconds later.


	6. Five

**Disclaimer: Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer. I just love to write with her characters. No copyright infringement intended. **

**Five**

**Forks, America**

**March 30****th**** 2089**

Becca didn't know why she went to school the following day. It would have been the most perfect revenge to skip it, as if to prove to her mom that one, she did what she wanted to do, and two, the fact that she had gone so long without ditching didn't secure a future of constant presence at school.

She didn't want to admit it to herself, but it was probably because she wanted to meet Jacob again. She couldn't remember the last time she had met someone that hadn't lived in Forks for their entire lives, someone who had moved outside the frames of the confined life Forks allowed you.

At the same time, it was difficult to ignore the fact that she liked to be with him; it was a nice contrast to Sarah and Harper. He was different, quiet, and her subconscious had realized that she liked that.

It was as if fate had listened to her mind that morning, when she spotted his car – that weird, old, thing – driving into the school parking lot the moment she arrived. A tiny smile played across her lips, even though she tried hard to mask herself with the same old troubled gaze she always painted her face with. Just like him.

"Jacob!" she called as she closed her car door, but then instantly regretted it. She didn't want to be that pushy girl. Nervously, she chewed on the inside of her cheek, as if it would pull her words back.

He turned around, and she hesitated where she stood. To her great surprise, _he _started walking towards _her_. Her eyes widened.

"Hi," he greeted. It distracted her for a split second. Had Jacob Black… just said hi to her?

"Hi," she choked out.

His face. She liked his face. It was different. He looked like… a man. He wasn't like Daniel, with a round face and enormous cheeks, or Nick, who looked as if he were still twelve years old. Jacob was… different. He was tall. He was big, but not in the wrong way. Her mind caught her wondering how his embrace would feel like. Soft and warm she guessed…

She secretly wondered if she would reach up to his shoulder if she went close enough, perhaps enjoying his arms around her she had fantasized about. But then she caught herself hoping, and quickly pushed the thought further into her mind, clouded with dark thoughts.

As if someone had planted the idea in both of their heads, they walked together, without a word, into the building. The fact that Becca was walking with someone she hadn't forced herself upon made her heart pound, and she nervously fidgeted with her plastic ring.

At lunch, a meal Becca once again spent with Jacob, she stole a quick glance at the table she had sat at a few days ago. She didn't even scowl at the thought of them seeming so indifferent to her absence. She was with Jacob now, right? At least she hoped so.

On the other hand, she questioned herself if the thought had only entered her head so that she could feel sorrier for herself, and proud because of the fact that she had managed to break her otherwise unchanged pattern.

As the day continued to pass, just like normal, there were many things that were far from normal.

With Jacob, Becca didn't feel lonely and left behind. Even though he almost never said anything, she always felt he was aware of her presence. Her graceless steps echoing as she walked next to him weren't forgotten. She never felt that with Sarah and Harper. And even though it scared her a bit to feel something other than cold, icy, loneliness that made her feel almost nonexistent, she liked it, too.

They walked to their cars together when last period finished. It made Becca realize she was longing for how her life had been before her father had… disappeared. When she had been happy, happy without even trying. As she thought of it, it made her wonder if her classmates were aware of the luxury they were enjoying for every ticking second.

Happiness.

"Hey." She let the impulse of the moment make her say it.

"Yeah." Jacob turned around.

"What're you doing right now?" she continued, almost unafraid. The moment her words left her mouth, she instantly regretted it, almost backing, putting her hand over her mouth in shock at her own words.

He frowned. "Nothing."

The truth was, Jacob never did anything after school. Except for maybe watching TV, or answering Esme's questions with at most two words. Of course, this was nothing Rebecca was aware of.

Becca fidgeted with the hem of her shirt, dropping her gaze. "Would you – " she paused. "Have you been to La Push?" She already knew the answer to question; she had seen him there a little more than a week ago. But she asked anyway, not wanting to acknowledge having met him there. That meeting had been… embarrassing? Awkward? She couldn't quite put it into words.

That voice – the one that prevented her from eating – the moment after she had uttered that sentence, it went wild. _First Beach is _your _place! _Your _place! Why are you even thinking the thought of sharing it with a boy, just because he's pretty with a nice body? Are you insane? _It almost made her squeeze her eyes shut. While putting regret and a screaming conscience in the back of her head, she fought it. To the best of her abilities, at least.

The voice was wrong. She hadn't invited Jacob with her because he was tall and gorgeous. She had invited him, because he was the first to never have let her down. Or, maybe it was only a matter of time before he would. She hadn't known him long at all.

She was so busy ignoring her voice, that she didn't notice Jacob's reaction. During just the shortest second, his eyes softened, his face released the constant scowl that was always painted on, and his posture relaxed. But just for a moment, during the second he forgot to have his armor safely up to protect him.

"Yeah, once," he lied, letting thousands of memories fill his otherwise empty mind. _La Push… _

"There's this place," Rebecca began, in the pauses of where the voice in her head had to pause to inhale, "in La Push. Well, it's a beach, really." She dropped her gaze again. "But I know you've been there because I saw you…" There was no awkwardness from Jacob, he didn't feel it. But Becca was the one to blush, and that prevented her from continuing freely.

Silence.

"I was going there now. And, I was wondering if," she hesitated. "Do you wanna come?"

Jacob's face twitched. Hesitation met longing. Two opposing forces meeting, battling inside. "Sure." With just a word, he had crushed one of the sides.

He met her eyes again, spotting surprise in them, but also a weird, strange, form of happiness.

Jacob remembered when he had been like that, young and naïve.

Did he really look at the kids in school like that now? Like… children? What had happened to the young, effortless, Jacob, with his chuckles and warm smiles?

It would have upset him to realize that his soul had inescapably become wizened as a raisin, but it didn't. Not now.

He didn't understand why he had agreed to follow her to La Push. _La Push_. Hadn't it just been the place where he had refused to go? Wasn't it the reason why he had had nightmares about moving back to Forks? Wasn't it the place where his life had taken a new path that would break him like delicate china?

How was it possible for his entire wall of protection to break, when Becca asked him? Why hadn't it been as solid and determined like when Bella, or any other leech, had tried to penetrate it?

He missed that place. So much. But was it reason enough to want to go there again? It had already been a mistake to go there that time, when Becca had seen him.

He had no idea why he'd done it. There was no reason to his sudden impulse of wanting to re-live things. It had worked, him being there had brought him closer to Nessie, but it hadn't been worth the aftermath.

Now, afterwards, he banned himself for having done it. The anger he felt inside would most likely result in the furious tugging at his hair, or the snarling words to the rest of the bloodsucker that he knew would silence them.

They knew. He knew that they knew. But they hadn't said anything, thank God.

Jacob had gone that time, just after school. He had been fast. Fast enough to get them to realize that it wasn't worth following. He wanted to be left alone from their never ending hovering over him. They were like hawks guarding him, all the time. He felt their unnatural eyes burn in his back when he wasn't watching.

First Beach had been a bad idea, but he had gone anyway.

Even though the place had barely mattered to him when he had been living a walking distance away from the beach, he felt… well, not whole, but a little more complete, as he for the first time in almost an entire life time inhaled the moist air of La Push.

The sweet, nostalgic, area around him was like a band-aid on his blood-dripping, never-healing, wounds, or a dose of morphine for someone in unbearable pain.

He hadn't meant to stay for long, but the moment he'd kicked off his shoes and sunk his feet down into the gold, wet sand that always felt so cold, he'd changed his mind.

That is, until he sensed the presence of a wolf brother.

He had felt fear. Fear – something he hadn't felt since he had started doubting that he would see Renesmee again.

Although this was another type of fear. It was fear for the upbringing of unnecessary and painful memories. It was the kind of fear you got, while running from your past.

If he were running from his past, then why the hell had he decided to jump straight into its arms, just because he wanted to escape the bloodsuckers?

The bloodsuckers were better than the wolf pack. _Anything _was better than the wolf pack. It was enough he had to hear all of their pathetic worries and attempts of contacting him while being in his wolf form. Their staged understanding.

If he had still been the same Jacob he'd been with Nessie, he would have felt shame spread around his heart while desperately trying to escape his brothers that were so close to coming. Shame, because he was the only one whose imprint had abandoned him.

All of the other imprintees, it was as if they were sewn onto the skin of the ones they loved. They wouldn't leave them.

But Nessie had left Jacob.

He'd crossed the boundary to Forks in time. No one had been after him.

He didn't utter a single word for days after that.

But now, he was suddenly willing to go back there again. For some human girl who couldn't even bring herself together enough to eat.

There had been something in Becca's voice that had made him hesitate in his obvious choice. Anticipation. Hidden under the cloth of insecurity, he had found real hopefulness in her voice. Uncertainty had instantly hit him. He would go, she wanted him to go.

Becca couldn't remove the smile that stubbornly overwhelmed her lips. "I'll drive first then, show the way. Or, you already know it, right?" She then hurried to her car, not expecting an answer, so that Jacob wouldn't have time to change his mind. Part of her thought he would, while another one couldn't get that smug smile off her face because someone had _wanted _to be with her.

He had said yes, just like that. No hesitating frown or lying excuse that always hit her like fists in her stomach had come from him.

Childishly, Becca attempted to maneuver the car to the best of her abilities to impress Jacob as she drove the familiar road to First Beach. Time after time, she checked the rearview mirror, just to see that his strange car was still behind her.

Her heart skipped a beat, as she realized that it suddenly wasn't. She instantly hit the brake, blinking away the tears in her eyes and managed to let them become unfallen. She wouldn't cry for him.

Of course he had left. It had been to good to be true, the fact that he had wanted to go to First Beach with her. Jacob was a fantasy too far out of reach.

She tried to ignore the usual sting of loneliness in her chest as she slowly started driving again.

It was fine. She was fine. She could go to First Beach without him. She hadn't missed anything; she had never been there with anyone before. It would be just as good as usual.

Or, she was just hurt from the fact that she had, in her stupid, nonexistent, vanity, hoped that it was physically possible for a human being not to shy away from her, she finally admitted to herself.

Okay fine, hot, Indian boy, had ditched her for being with his cool, equally hot, family. She could take that. She could face it – it wasn't that big a deal. She didn't even know him that well.

Fuck him. You didn't leave, just like that, did you?

She parked sloppily, shutting the car door with too much force behind her as she clumsily sank down in the sand while angrily walking towards a place she usually went to, with big tree trunks to sit on, and a ground that was the least wet due to a few tree branches high above, offering protection. Her arms swung vigorously at her sides, probably giving her the impression of looking like Pippi Longstocking.

It had been so stupid of her to believe that she could get new friends. Jacob was probably on his way home now, laughing at his mistake.

Although Jacob didn't strike her as the type laughing…

She strangled a sob in her chest as she rummaged impatiently in her bag after a cigarette. Her fingers had barely gripped her lighter as she heard the distant sound of a car engine.

The sound developed. She froze, slowly turning towards the parking. Suddenly, her pulse was thudding in her ears. Soon she would notice that the coming car was just the one she wanted it to be.

She dropped the lighter into the bag again, moving slowly, but determined, towards the littered beach parking lot. Her heart jumped in her chest at the surprise.

Was he coming back?

She thought her eyes were fooling her as Jacob parked next to her, opening the car door while apologizing. His voice was quiet, mumbling, as he with a very scarce vocabulary explained the engine had somehow broken.

"Sorry," he excused himself.

Her puzzled mind quieted her, as she watched Jacob slowly look left and right, admiring her place. _Her _place. In his dark eyes, she spotted a weird kind of relief that she didn't recognize.

"I really like this place," he whispered. Without her having to tell him, he walked towards the place, with the tree trunks, she had intended to show him. Maybe it wasn't that weird, he had seen her sitting there before.

Quietly, she followed him, watching him walk, seeing his strong back muscles flex through the fabric of his shirt. He also seemed to be like her, unchanged by the cold.

Before sitting down, he softly laid a hand on the old bark of the fallen trees, flexing his fingers at the touch. She continued being quiet, just watching him act as if he was one with First Beach, as if he could melt, and become one with the wet sand.

"Hey… You wanna… there are these really cool tidal pools, with loads of cool fish and stuff… Do you wanna see them?" she decided to say. "Or, maybe you've seen them already?"

He instantly turned around to face her. "Tidal pools," he said quietly at first, as if she weren't there. "No, I haven't seen them," he added afterwards. She caught a glimpse of something light in his eyes.

Her heart pounded in her chest as he showed him the way between the web of tree roots and low tree branches, thinking this couldn't possibly be true. She couldn't be showing this place, where she so often went, to someone she had met days ago.

She let out a squeal of excitement she instantly regretted having done, as the pools became visible in front of them. Acting like this wasn't like her.

"Look." She pointed down, into the pool, full of colorful life, blended with the clear water.

"It's pretty," Jacob agreed.

"I know…" She sat down on the ground, next to him. "My dad used to take me here…" The sky was grey above them.

Had she just told him about her dad? Her dead dad, whose suicide she had for so long tried to repress and delete from her shattered mind.

Her mouth instantly closed. What the fuck was she doing?

She still had memories of those pools, with her dad next to her. His warm laugh tickling her ear, her mind, emptied of sorrows, fascinated by the creatures in the pools just focusing on the fact that her dad was there with _her_.

"But that was a long time ago," she quickly added, and rose.

"_Dad! Dad! Look at the fish!" Her laugh replayed over and over again. _

"_It's very pretty honey. How about that one, then? It's pretty, too."_

_The water was reflecting the sun, finally out of hiding. "I think Mom likes that one…" Her fingers inches from the soft surface, so close to being immersed and surrounded by the pretty, pretty water…_

She felt Jacob's gaze was on her back and she turned around. "Let's go back." She wiped a fallen tear off her cheek.

How could she have found it necessary to take Jacob to this place, this place full of memories? Oh, right, because she was an idiot.

Maybe her faux friendship had affected her so badly, she was willing to give everything away to someone she barely knew, clinging to every opportunity to gain a friend.

"Becca?"

"Yeah," she said, quickly wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. Hopefully, he hadn't seen it. "Yeah."

"Is something wrong?"

Suddenly he was right beside her. She shook her head. He didn't answer.

They went back to the fallen tree trunks, silence still prominent between them. She got her pack of cigarettes out from her bag and paused, suddenly realizing that her gesture could be interpreted as selfish.

"Do you want one?" she asked only to be polite. Those cigarettes weren't cheap, and the last thing she wanted to be was broke.

He hesitated.

"You don't smoke?"

He hesitated again, his right eyebrow twitching in that weird way. "No, not really." He paused. "Oh, what the heck," he then suddenly said, reaching out to take one. "You've got a lighter?"

She nodded. "Yeah," She rummaged around a little in her huge bag until she found it. "Here."

He studied it, a faint smile on his lips. "You've put stickers on your lighter?" he said, releasing the faintest chuckle from his lips. The laughter was barely audible, but yet it stuck like glue on Becca's mind.

Had Jacob just… done something that absolutely _could _be interpreted as laughter?

She blushed. "Uh, yeah. Apparently."

"Why?"

"I just like it better," she explained. "It looks better." She reached out to take the lighter from him and light her own cigarette. "Though I have to change them from time to time, the color wears off."

"_The color wears off?_" he quoted. "Who puts stickers on their lighters anyway?" He smiled. _Smiled_. It made the heart she thought was frozen thud in her chest. Him smiling was the best thing she had seen in a long time.

"My cousin does," she defended herself with.

He smiled faintly again. "Really?"

"Yeah, she's really funny."

He didn't answer, but from the corner of her eye, she saw that his gaze wasn't half as brooding and dark as it used to be. It made her mouth twitch a little.

She had never seen him like this before. He had never laughed like that with her before. Not like that, not in that spontaneous, charming way that made goose bumps raise on her arms. He had never without thinking just chuckled at something she had said, or done. That troubled gaze was always spread across his face, and that serious look always reached so deeply into his eyes.

Maybe it had something to do with where they where. Before, she had only seen him at school, and not outside. And in school, he was always quiet and troubled, never smiling. Maybe he was more comfortable here, without the babbling crowd of students.

Becca couldn't stop wondering what had happened to him to make him the way he was. Because she knew he hadn't always been as everyone else saw him now. She knew that he deep down wasn't the miserable boy he seemed to be. There were more to him, and she wanted to unlock it all.

Her thoughts were interrupted by him choking.

"Sorry," he excused himself with. "Been a while."

She didn't answer, the shyness overtook her as she uncomfortably stared down at her painted toenails. Her new sandals were already getting soaked by the wet sand. What was she going to say? She was suddenly nervous, with this new Jacob next to her.

He sighed, averting his gaze to the ocean. The way his dark eyes lit up as he observed the waves caressing the sand made her wonder if he knew this place better than she thought. Maybe it had been stupid to invite him. Maybe he was thinking she was an idiot for believing she had _showed_ him this place. Yeah, right.

"Have you been here a lot before?" she asked him, looking up from her feet.

His eyes were torn from the ocean instantly. "No, no, I haven't," he rushed, staring at her hands, where she was fingering with the ring. "I just moved here, remember?" He laughed uncomfortably. "Just that one time…"

Becca knew he lied. Still, she shrugged her shoulders in a gesture of acceptance. "Just seems like you know this place." It was a statement.

"Not well at all," he replied, throwing the remains of his cigarette on the ground, pressing it further down into the wet sand with his shoe.

"Do you like it, then?" she wanted to know while staring at the horizon, in the spot where the blue ocean met the grey sky. The contrast was beautiful when it, for once, didn't rain. She was thankful for that.

"Are you kidding?" he laughed. "I love it."

"Me, too," she said, her voice close to a whisper, putting out her cigarette as well. "Why did you move here?" Her gaze averted to his face, still deeply studying the ocean. His mouth became a thin line, hesitating.

"Or, don't answer that," she added, afraid to push him, scared of losing their newly gained friendship by being too curious. She so badly wanted to ask about his family – to see if he were aware of how freaky it was that someone had _seven _freaking foster children – but she didn't.

Becca wasn't alone. Finally. Had it really been this easy?

The harmonic sound of the waves rolling onto the beach again and again repeated as music for them. Nothing in the world could compare to this. Even though the rain threatened above, and the wind was stubbornly pulling in the both of them, it didn't change anything.

"Jacob, how old are you?" Rebecca suddenly demanded, looking at him. Even though she was aware of how some questions made him, she asked anyway. Curiosity got the best of her.

A puzzled crease appeared on his forehead.

"I'm sixteen, like you. You know that."

She inhaled. "No. I mean, I know. But, I mean, how old are you _really_?"

He couldn't be sixteen. That was just insane. Not Jacob, he was at least twenty, maybe more. Because, for crying out loud, she was sure he was almost seven feet tall. Plus those muscles of his just weren't natural for a _sixteen-year old_ if he wasn't on steroids, which she refused to believe. And that voice of his was just so… _masculine_. He couldn't be sixteen, not when there were guys in her grade who barely reached up to her shoulders.

Jacob shifted uncomfortably in his seat. If Becca only knew what was going through his head, if she only knew the answer to her question.

"Rebecca, I really am sixteen."

It was a lie – the untruth was prominent in his voice. But she would be patient with him – it would be worth it.

At least that was what she wanted to believe.

"You can call me Becca if you want to," she shyly suggested.

He didn't say anything. Becca stared at the sand under her, insecure, feeling the wet ground making her pants damp. She didn't really care. Even though her toes were freezing as well, she didn't really care about that either.

"Aren't you cold?" she suddenly wondered. While getting dressed in the morning, Becca had thought _she_ was pushing limits with her new, pretty, gladiator sandals and sweatshirt, no jacket. But she was still wearing jeans. Jacob was sitting next to her, in the wet sand, wearing cut off _shorts _and a simple shirt. It was insane, even for Becca, to be dressed like that when it was less than fifty degrees outside.

Jacob froze uncomfortably, it was easy for Becca to see him tensing next to her. "No," he said slowly.

"Why?" she asked, in her ignorance not thinking it could be so important. The fact that he was wearing almost no clothes at all, it couldn't matter that much.

If she only knew.

"I don't get cold that easily."

"No, I get that," she said with a little laugh. "Why?"

"I dunno," he replied. His voice wasn't very convincing.

"Really?"

"Sure, sure," he replied.

And when they sat so close to each other, she realized that there actually was heat radiating from him. It touched her in a few spots, but only the ones closest to him. They weren't sitting very close, but obviously close enough for her to feel his body warmth.

It couldn't be normal. If another person had sat next to her, she wouldn't have felt their body temperature like she was feeling Jacob's.

She shivered a little as his heat lingered on her skin for just the briefest moment. He sat still beside her, his eyes captured into the horizon in front of them.

Jacob knew this place. She was so sure of it. But she wasn't going to push it further either. She wouldn't want Jacob to push her ditching, the lack of enough food in her daily life… Since he had lied, there had to be a reason he didn't want to tell her.

"Where do you live?" she asked slowly, perhaps scared that it had been a too intimate question.

"Just outside of Forks. You?"

"There's this road just behind the pharmacy… you know, next to the old restaurant," she stated. "I live there."

He nodded.

She wanted to ask another question, but her insides were hesitating. The last thing she wanted to do was to push him, but her curiosity was so stubborn she finally let the wall of restraint fall. "Does your entire family live with you?"

"Yeah." Even though his answer was short, it wasn't forced, and it didn't contain a hidden aversion. "What about your family?"

She froze.

"Um, I live with my mom." All of a sudden, her voice wasn't as clear as it had been before.

He nodded, not asking anything else.

"My dad's… dead." The last word escaped her mouth quietly, as she brooded over what his reaction would be. Probably just like everyone else's.

"That sucks," he stated.

There were no _I'm sorrys_, no _whys_, no awkward silences, no stupid attempts of consoling her, not even a pretended empathy that proved they had never gone through anything like that.

The way he said it, she knew he had been, or was, where she was. Her heartbeat quickened the tiniest bit.

Suddenly, he stiffened beside her.

"Fuck," he cussed, quickly rising.

She frowned, standing up as well. "What?"

He stared pleadingly at her for the shortest moment. "I'm sorry, I have to go."

The disappointment reached her in the exact same second as one lonely raindrop landed on her shoulder. _Rain. Again. _

"Why?" she asked, trying to hide the disappointment she felt.

He was already walking backwards, towards where they had parked the cars. His eyes, there was something new to them. They weren't like before. She couldn't recognize what was in them. Fear? No, not really. Just an uncomfortable look of that he shouldn't be there.

"Jacob?" He was running.

"I'll see you tomorrow," he cried to her, his back to her. A few short seconds later, the engine to his weird car roared to life. She halted, and quietly sat down without a word on the sandy ground. She stared after him as he drove away. Suddenly, an unexpected emptiness crept up from behind, grabbing her.

She blinked a few times as she realized that he was gone, and slowly walked back to the place where they had just sat. As she lit another cigarette, she spotted the presence of someone else from the corner of her eye.

It was those boys again, the ones she sometimes saw. There were many of them now, more than usual. Seven? Instead of three. And she could spot more of them further away.

They were dressed as always, just wearing those cut-off shorts. She snorted at them. Who were they fooling anyway? No one would think they were cooler by showing off those perfect abs and muscles. Even though they happened to be… pretty hot. Okay, _very _hot.

The similarity didn't hit her directly. It took a while for her to realize, and when she did, she cursed herself for not recognizing it earlier. Because it was so obvious. Indian, dark, boys, walking around as if Forks was an island in the Bahamas wearing less than her, while at the same time possessing bodies that could have been the result of steroids – tall and big with perfectly shaped muscles.

They were… _Jacob_. Clones of Jacob, their spookily alike features dangling in the air. Her eyes bore into the boys, appearing to be searching for something. A few were running.

She shook her head as if to wake up from her thinking trance.

It had to be a coincidence. It had to be.

But what were the chances?

Fifteen minutes later, Jacob reached his temporary home. As fast as he could, he ran towards the door, and flung it open as if his live was depending on it. Just as fast, he shut it close. Panting, he froze with his back against the door, arms outstretched, closing his eyes in relief. _Thank God._


	7. Six

**Disclaimer: Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer. I just love to write with her characters. No copyright infringement intended. **

**Six**

**25 miles East of Santiago, Chile**

**March 30****th**** 2089**

Renesmee is running. Nahuel, too – inches in front of her he's showing the way through the dense-lying mountains. She feels his long, black braid slap her face from the wind running in the speed they do create.

For a short second, she thinks of outrunning him. After all, she is capable of deleting her own scent. Her scent – she can easily delete what will lead others straight into the arms of whom they are running from. It would be easy to leave Nahuel behind, while continuing herself. It would be so easy to leave him to take responsibility for their actions.

But she won't leave him to suffer their consequences alone. She carries on, at his side.

Her skin is glowing faintly in the light the sun is casting. High above, it is positioned in the middle of the sky, gazing down at the two of them as if it knows perfectly what they've done.

She regrets it a little now. Her life would have been better if she would have stayed with Jacob. Jacob was good for her. He would have kept her out of trouble. He would have kept her out of the trouble she found with Nahuel.

Her mind has, for all of these years, persisted in telling herself that Jacob is fine, wherever he is. He probably never even searched for her for very long. He has moved on, he too has realized that she wasn't good for him. Their relationship had been a mistake – an imprint gone wrong.

Of course she misses him – he is the best thing that has ever happened to her – but at the same time, she knows that it has been for the best. He would never approve of her new lifestyle. He would never let her become who she now is.

It is for Jacob's best, them being apart. At least, that is what she is trying to tell herself. She is with Nahuel now.

High above, sparkling snow is coating the tops of the devastatingly high mountains. Diamond-like dust is being transferred into the air by the wind above. In the mess she's in, she imagines switching paths, climbing up those mountains, going so far up that nothing will hurt her.

She continues to run. Run fast, away from something she knows it's just a matter of time until she'll be surrounded by – she and him are being chased.

Santiago is such a beautiful city. It is such a shame that after all of the merciless murders, executed by Nahuel and Renesmee, the city has become blacker and blacker on the world map. Now, it is a dangerous place with inexplicable killings never ceasing to scare the life out of the population.

All this fear due to Renesmee and Nahuel. Nahuel, the boy she pretends to love. Really, she's just using him for the thrill of the blood.

The blood is worth it all, though. She now indiscriminately kills for that heavenly red drink, without as much as a second thought. Even as she is running between the high peaks of Chilean mountains, she can't bring herself to regret starting to drink human blood. Her other family members are ignorant fools, brain-washed by Carlisle in his feeble attempts to do the world some good by not following through on their natural diet.

As hopeless as their situation is, she's not scared, perhaps because she has no idea what is in front of her. The last time she met them, they were more than merciful – and she is falsely supposing that is their nature. Soon her ignorance will backlash, and she will realize she has been wrong. Oh, so very wrong.

It is Nahuel who is keeping her running. Fear is oozing off of his body, just like her beaming confidence never seems to wither. It will.

At first, when she came across his path, Nahuel helped her heal. Her expectations hadn't been too high – living with someone equal to her was even better than she imagined. With him, she dealt with her past and stopped the cutting. She accepted herself. He made her think she was invincible.

As the years passed, she grew. She started putting herself first. _Always_. Boredom crept in and she dragged herself and Nahuel into a spider's web, impossible to get out of. A spider web consisting of sucking the life out of humans. They got in too deep. Too many killings. Too many throats ripped to shreds.

Too many killings had brought them to this – the running, the fleeing. Nahuel, scared to death in front of her. They are running from the coven of vampires that will most definitely crush them to death. Only, Nahuel is the only one who really senses the inexorable future.

The Volturi…

She knows it's them – Nahuel does, too. They're not stupid.

All of a sudden, a dark, cloaked figure appears in front of them. It is far away, 500 yards, but yet, Nahuel stops in front of them, knowing.

He's panting, not because of the running – out of fear. Fear that weakens him, fear that has him gasp for air.

There are more than one, she realizes as dark spots take form in front of them. Two, three, five, eight… She quits counting after eight. They were more last time – they won't hurt them…

She knows about the laws, _the _law. Keep it a secret. Stay hidden. She and Nahuel have. They've done nothing wrong. Just… feeding. Indiscriminately.

"Stay calm," she urges, not convinced he'll do as she says.

The wind above screams as the mountain peaks cut through it, just like a knife. It is far from cold enough for them to freeze, but Nahuel is shivering next to her anyway.

_Stay calm…_

One tiny cloak is ahead of everyone else. Rensmee casts a glance at it – a girl, younger than she. She wants to laugh, how pathetic, but time runs out as inexplicable pain suddenly strikes her from behind, like a stab in the back. Against her will, she falls to the uneven, sharp ground, instantly remembering.

_Jane. _

The pain sets her on fire, licking her burning limbs until they don't exist anymore. It shuts everything out. Her thoughts dissolve into a distant, velvet darkness as the pain consumes her. There is nothing but the never-ceasing agony that is eating her up, leaving nothing in its demolishing aftermath. She's disappearing. It hurts. Suddenly, she's fragile as a little bird.

Nahuel has lied. She isn't invincible.

**A/N: Thank you so much for the response to the previous chapter! And thanks to my beta, Vanessa James!**


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